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Thanks for listening to The Restless Politics. Sign up to The Restless Politics Plus to enjoy ad-free listening and receive a weekly newsletter. Join our members' chat room again early access to live show tickets. Just go to TheRestlessPolitics.com. That's TheRestlessPolitics.com. Welcome to The Restless Politics Question Time with Miroris Jyut and Mi Ascamel. Very good. So, Alisa, sewage dumping, this is a question you like. Clifthenton. I'm sure you'll be aware of all the news covering the dumping of sewage into our country's waterways. And onto our beaches, I understand you voted to support this approach in a recent vote this year. Did you? In Parliament, is that correct? I'd like to understand why and given I imagine this may be addressed at me, I'm only teasing you. I'd like to understand why and given the absolute mess what actions you're going to take to reverse the SunExceptible situation. So, Clifth, I'm not actually a sitting MP, so I haven't been a member of the British Parliament since 2019, so I certainly did not vote to support this approach in a recent vote this year in Parliament. However, it is a good subject and once worth talking about, basically at the heart of it, I believe is the incredible, lamentable, underinvestment in our sewage system, which means that the whole British sewage system at the moment and has for a long time depended if there's an overflow in discharging raw sewage into water and fixing this. And I was the Environment Minister, so I spent a lot of time looking at this issue, is an issue of tens of billions of pounds. The number that was thrown at me was something like 23, 25 billion pounds, which to put it in context is, I don't know, the entire prison budget four times over would have to go into fixing this. So, it's not a small amount of money and it would be interesting to see a cross-party approach to put the funding in place to get it together. And I think there's another thing that isn't communicated to the public, which is that being a bit unfair to colleagues in the Treasury, but the impression I got from the Treasury was that they thought that 23 billion pounds wasn't worth it for the health benefits that she derived from not putting the sewage into the water. Question here, related from Lee Williams, your thoughts on water companies charged with a customer 10 billion pounds over 10 years to repair antiquated network, despite with drawing over 50 billion pounds in dividends over the last 10 years. I think this is what gets people really angry or it is, this is of all the privatisations. I think this is the one that really gets people to go. And I think that people just feel that these water companies have been absolutely in it for the money, haven't really invested for the long term. And sort of stop care, at some point they stop caring about the quality of water. And of course, if you have something like to raise coffees, the minister who always seems to me like somebody who is almost like everything is happening around us, though it's got nothing to do with them. Yeah, well, it's not very good, is it? But it's better than it was or it's, you know, we've got, she actually went on television the other day, so we've got the cleanest bathing water we've ever had. Well, you then look at these maps of where this SHIT is being pumped out in massive quantities. And as you know, I'm a cold water swimmer and we're always looking for new places. And you can't even, you can't even get the data now as to what is clean and what isn't. I think the government's completely underestimating this issue as a real problem for them. I mean, it is a really interesting, see, the one that I was completely obsessed with was air quality because when I was the minister, it became clear that at least 26,000 people a year were dying prematurely from air pollution. But I remember doing a debate with Diane Abbott in the House of Commons. And she was saying it's absolutely disgusting that air pollution is, you know, worse than it's ever been. And I had to say, actually, that isn't true. And it's sounding a bit like to raise coffee. Of course, the truth is air quality is much, much better than it was 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago. It was unbelievably bad. The nitrogen dioxide, self-addioctyde, it was an era. And of course, you go back to the famous smogs and fogs of Victorian Britain. That was air pollution. That wasn't, that wasn't weather. What Dickens thought was part of the traditional London weather was simply industrial pollution. So it is also true that actually our beaches and water have on many indicators improved over the last 20, 30 years. But our expectations are also understandably expanding all time. So just as I don't think it's good enough to say, we don't need to do anything on air because it was worse than the past. Well, 26,000 people are still dying prematurely. And you can make the same argument around sewage. Yes, it may well be that our bathing water is cleaner than it was in the past. I mean, the Thames famously is much cleaner than it was in the early 80s. And we've built a huge super sewer under the Thames, being built four billion pounds, super sewer under the Thames to make it even cleaner. But I think the public still wants things better than that, don't they? Yeah. Now, Kirsty Savapalan, I've just ordered Alice's book, thank you. Somebody who's disabled and lives with the chronic illness, ME, which limits mobility and exertion. What can I realistically do? Do you know of any active disabled chronicly sick politician role models to inspire people like me? Actually, there is a... When you read the book, I think you'll find that I have a section where I pay tribute to three of my favourite MPs, Jack Ashley, who was profoundly deaf, David Blunkett, who was, as we all know, blind and was one of our best ministers by a long way, and Ann Begg MP up in Aberdeen, who I suspect was in there when in Parliament with you, Rory. Yes. Yeah. And of course, was in a wheelchair. And I don't know if you may know Rory, I also know politicians who struggle with mental health problems. I don't know of any who have ME, with don't know whether you do Rory, but I don't think we should think that it's impossible to be a member of Parliament with chronic illness. I mean, one of the striking examples of my intake is Paul Maynard, who has cerebral palsy. He was strangled by an unbellical caught up birth, developed epilepsy, and has been a very effective MP, and he was a minister in justice, minister in transport, a very bright guy. I mean, it's not easy, and there have been times where he's felt that he's suffered real abuse as a politician. I'm afraid to say also, actually abuse from the Labour bench, it's when he's been speaking, but he's a real example of somebody who's overcome extraordinary difficulties to be a powerful MP. Now, here's a question for you. Charlotte, what are Rory and Alice's views on Kierstarmus plans to allow more building on the Green Belt? I live on the world. There are applications to build houses on our Green Belt Land, which are extremely unpopular with myself and local residents. I've always voted Labour, and was planning to at the next election, but Starmus comments made me think twice. Where are you on building on the Green Belt? I think I'm moving towards it. I don't see how we... I, as you know, love a great landscape. I think a lot of the one we talk about the Green Belt, we're not necessarily talking about great landscapes. We're talking about land that has been protected from certain forms of building into which there has already been a sense of encroachment, and I think as long as we do have proper environmental policies, then at some point, given the housing crisis in this country, we are going to have to look at it. I'm on the other side of this. So I think the Green Belt has been an amazing thing around our cities. I think it stopped urban sprawl. It was a really smart move. If I look at a city like Nagoya where I was yesterday and see what happens when there isn't adequate protection around, and a lot of American cities, you can really see how the sprawl continues empty. I'd like us to be more imaginative if I agree. A lot of the Green Belt Band is substandard land. So I'd like to see Kierstarmus put in his manifesto, in fact you and I should write a manifesto for Kierstarmus, but in his manifesto, a commitment to plant the Green Belt around London with the largest forest in England. We could put in 500 million trees, we could transform air quality, we could have an impact on climate, we could have an incredible impact on leisure, by putting the Green Belt to proper use. So it's not just sitting there as half a band in land, but get a beautiful, beautiful grand forest planted there. Okay, listen Harry Diamond, what does the UK Cabinet Minister in 2023 have to do to get the sack as in no resignation given or accepted, plain outright, you're fired. What do you think a minister would actually have to do to get the boot without any sense of, if I think of Ron Davis when he went for a walk on Clapham Common, that ended up in him being sacked, we had, but the warmest and last sacking in this government. I think Ron Davis is unfortunate because I think Ron Davis is a legacy from a period where the press were pushing for ministers who were gay and he was stuck in a problem about not being comfortable coming out. I think that that wouldn't happen today and I think ministers are much less likely to be forced to resign over affairs. Although I guess Matt Hancock had resigned, but that was connected with breaking COVID regulations. What would it take to drive people out? Well, I think I've been at remember the number of people have gone, have resigned or been sacked, not until Harry went about his tax affairs. Yeah, but it was going after a long draw now, trying to defend them and keep going. There's nothing seems to be cut and dried anymore. And this whole thing about the soon I appears to be sort of using the ethics advisor in much the way as previous Tory primalists have done to sort of say, let's see if we can sort of kick the process into the long grass a bit. Oh, I'm not sure that's fair. I think this ethics advisor, Laurie Magnus is not only pretty good, but pretty quick. I mean, I know people suspected that, but actually what happened with items of Harvey is I think he was back with them four days. As soon as he produced his report, items of Harvey went. Now, I think that's working pretty efficiently. It's not kicking it into long grass like a royal commission or something. Okay, James O.B. Who's the most intimidating person you both come across in politics? I said James O'Brien. No, I don't think it is James O'Brien. I think James O'Brien is called James O.B. on social media, but I don't think this is James O'Brien. The most intimidating person. I'm going for Helm at Cole. I found him incredibly intimidating. More than Vladimir Putin. Yeah, partly because of his physicality, I think he was very, and I don't mean intimidating, by the way, in a dominant robbed type way of bullying and aggression, just incredibly intimidating because of his size. And there was a power about him that sort of emanated. I found him very intimidating. Yeah. Well, I put my money on the leaders in Barbe. I was the first minister to meet President Managagua after his inauguration. And he killed his first man, I think when he's 14 or 15, and then led Mugabe's security service. And at that period when he came in, there was a real desire to believe that now that Mugabe had stepped down, that Managagua was going to lead a new liberal opening that they were going to open up economically and politically and run clean elections. And he marched in to see me with two men and four military uniform on either side of him sat down and he began talking about Laura Kabila and his time in military training camps in Angola in the 1970s and early 80s. And I sort of remembered, you know, and I gently tried to suggest in the the weird way that British ministers are supposed to that maybe we should allow Zimbabweans outside the country to vote and we should have independent electoral monitors in. And he looks at me with a sort of extraordinary sort of mingled pity experience and sight sort of derision. And I left the room thinking that the idea that we were going to get amazing reforms out of a man called Emerson the Crocodile Managagua was not very likely. Well, the one that I almost said, but I didn't want to, was also Zimbabweans and that was Mugabe. But it wasn't, I didn't feel intimidated by him. I felt utterly repelled and revolted. It's one of the most expensive suits I've ever seen. You've got a good eye for expensive suits. Have you, you're always noting that on Michael Hesselstein, who else did you think had an expensive suit? I saw from the town recently. He had a very expensive suit. And what's the sign of an expensive suit as a man that doesn't notice these things? What do you notice about expensive suits? It's the cut you can tell. You can tell it's just very, very, very well cut. And the cloth sort of, I noticed we've, for example, we did a panel together and we were sitting down maybe for about two hours. But I noticed that when he stood up, it still looked like he'd just put it on. It was the weight of the cloth. I mean, I don't know. I could be, maybe it was Mars and Spence's, but I don't think so. So Mugabe was wearing this incredibly expensive suit and it was at the Chogham, the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Edinburgh. And his first question was on the lines of, why did Tony Blair surround himself with nothing but homosexuals? Jonathan Powell and I were both sort of very confused as to why he was asking this question. But so then he went to, did a brief about Tony Blair's gay mafia. Or very, very, very odd. Gosh, it couldn't scratch me. I did tell you. Yeah. Oliver Merriman, Year of Broad story for Alistair. I am, like you were, a student of modern languages at Kees College in Cambridge. Is that Gonville and Kees? That's the one. That's very, very nice. Gonville and Kees College Cambridge, where you went, right? September, I'm going on my Year of Broad and would therefore love to know the most memorable story you might have from the time you spent on your Year of Broad and as a modern linguistic Cambridge University. It was one of the best years of my life. Totally random. All the students were given the choice of having Year of Broad in a school, teaching English for 12 hours a week, or going to university. I went for these school. It's then total pot like about where you get sent and I got sent to a school in Nice. So I had a year living in Nice, Stam by the Port and it was absolutely wonderful. The highlight moment in a bizarre sort of way was probably when I realized that I could make a very, very good living as a busker, because I had my backpipes with your backpipes. I went and found a very quiet place out in the open, but a sort of random car park in the middle of nowhere, tuned them up, started playing them just from my own entertainment. And this crowd came out and started throwing money into the box and I thought, oh my God, you would just practice things. So that evening, I went to the promenade des Anglais and then Rue Masséna, which is the sort of pedestrian precinct, and I stood there playing my pipes. I thought, God, I can make it up, so it fortune. So I then, what I did, I persuaded the head teacher of the school, can I pack my 12 hours into one and a half days and then the rest of the year, I just spent the time traveling around Europe making a lot of money with my backpipes. And that's how you made major fortunes? Well, fortune overstates it. So, Rue, if you were asking me specific questions aimed at me, Karl Weissmann, could Rue please share a few of his lessons from staying overnight with ordinary people during his Merrill campaign? Yeah, so that, that, thank you. So this was something called Come Kip with me. And I put out a tweet saying, I'd love to be invited to stay in People's Houses and about 6,000 people wrote back almost immediately and there were lovely emails coming in from people saying, they're often very long emails, trying to explain why I should be staying with them and what I'd learn by staying with them. But it was really eye opening. I stayed with a cooperative for older women up in North London. I stayed on the sofa of a guy's family flat in one's worth where he was living with his parents and his sister and a younger brother and a two bedroom council house. Did you, did you, did you have anybody check them out before you went? Yeah, some of my team would, would call them. When you're an MP, obviously you're often leafleting, so you knock on a door and you put a leaflet through and you ask a couple of questions and you move on. If you stay in someone's house, you have the whole night and the morning and you talk late into the night and you wake up and you often you can walk, walk to work with them in the morning or walk to their, to the underground station with the morning. And I, I learnt so much. I mean, I learnt so much from just getting a sensor was a, stable of a woman who was volunteering in a, in a homeless shelter, out towards Stratford. And a lot of the times I was sleeping on people so first, but it just gave me an amazing insight in a way that is so important for London, because London isn't really one place. It's sort of 32 cities connected to each other and you've really got to spend time in one of them. And did you, did you literally stay on your own or did any of your people, your team stay with you? I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd stay on my own. Except one case, I think my friend Will came and stayed once, but generally I'd stay on my own and we'd have, sometimes have supper. I'd bring a, I'd bring some milk tray. I'd bring, bring, bring milk tray with me. Milk tray? Yeah, yeah. Cabries. Interesting. Always milk tray. Always cabries milk tray. Yeah. Why? Well, because someone had made a joke about my being, you know, the man with the milk tray. So it was just kind of cramped. Okay. Okay. Because then the man, how caught was the milk tray man as well, wasn't he? Because you dressed with that. Well, that's because he wore black, that, that wasn't because he, he, he went in through people's windows for the present. I think it's more because he wore a dodgy black polar neck. Right. Well, let's, let's just take a quick break on Rory Stewart, the milk tray man. Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's the show that we recommend. Listeners, I am Danny K. White and much to my own surprise, I am a decluttering expert. I'm the creator of the No Mess decluttering method and host of the podcast, Aslab comes clean. As I figure out ways to keep my own home under control, I share the truth about cleaning, organizing and decluttering strategies that work in real life for real people, people who don't love cleaning and organizing. I teach strategies I developed by working through my own clutter. In episode 376, I shared three moments when you should hesitate and declutter. Like, when I think I need to buy more hangers, I actually need to declutter my closet. If you've heard naturally organized people talk and felt like they were speaking a language, you did not understand. Come join us at Aslab comes clean, the podcast. You might just find your people. Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. acast.com. Welcome back to the rest of politics question time. John S, you both seem like very busy people, constantly on the move, traveling to different countries, working on multiple different projects. I wonder what are your tips for work life balance? I manage communications for a UK-DEP-Matic mission while also having three kids under the H5I feel burnt out most days. This struggle I wanted to give my all for the job and also my family. I'm the last person to answer that very, very well because I don't think I do it very well at all. The work life thing. I feel completely burnt out most of the time. As you know, I'm running this charity gift directly, which means that I have to be in Africa quite a lot and fundraising the states quite a lot. I feel very, very guilty. I've got an eight-year-old on the six-year-old and I won't see them now for almost three weeks. Oh, Lord. I think it's tough. It's tougher. Maybe this isn't true, but I sometimes feel it's tougher for my friends who are women. I think it's particularly tough for Shoshana who's running a big charity in Afghanistan and Myanmar and it's also having to do an enormous amount of other stuff in the house. I think it's pretty tough being a young parent, though, I guess, any gender because the expectations are generally pretty impossible, aren't they? Yeah. I listen, I'm a lot better than I was in that I rest more than I used to, but I still feel I have to exercise every day. I've been out swimming this morning and I'm doing boxing later on. I've got to exercise. I've got to sort of look after myself and, you know, our kids are growing up, but we still see a lot of them and still worry about them and still want to be connected to them. I guess you do have a job, but you also seem with the job to have quite a lot of freedom. Yeah, I think that's true. I'm the boss, which helps. And a lot of what I'm doing is fundraising. So I'm a lot of the time I'm traveling around trying to raise money. And it's true that she's a member of Parliament too, that you are your embossed as an MP and you can pretty much, MPs do work hard. I mean, whatever we think about them, maybe evil, maybe incompetent, but they do work hard. No, I think very few, very few, are evil, some are incompetent, but I agree with you that most work very, very hard. Yeah. Listen, we've got a couple of few critical questions this week, which I think we'll come back to you later. We've got a lot of people asking us that suggesting that we were very dismissive of doctors and the question of why we've got such a problem with training, training doctors, which I said we'd come back to, but given the level of the number of people who got in touch to say that they felt we were dismissive, I think we should come back at it when we've really looked into the issue. And there's another one we've got some, we've got a bit of criticism, Fritfly. The most popular country in Africa held an election this year, the results of which remain controversial. I haven't yet heard you guys mention it once. Can you give us some thoughts analysis on Nigeria before the swearing end of Tannu, be we at the end of the month? In fact, Fritfly, you must have missed the episode where we talked to good lengths about the election. When we've done a couple of Nigerian episodes, and we talked quite a lot about Tannu, I mean, it is, it's very difficult to know who could have brought Nigeria out of its current malice, but it's difficult. I'm afraid to believe that Tannu can because he is absolutely a veteran machine politician. And the guy that was meant to be sort of breath of fresh air came, I think, came third in the end, who was Peter Obey. And Tannu, who famously had his assets frozen by the US government for heroin dealing in 93. It's pretty worrying, yeah. Simon C. I'm genuinely interested in your answer to this. And I think I know what the answer is going to be, but I don't really. I'm an art teacher, so Simon, I wonder how you both feel about art. Are you artists yourself? Do you make time to be creative? Do you have exhibitions or galleries that are favourites? Gunnest Payton. I do paint a little bit. I paint and I draw my first book, play center between, who's got my drawings in it. Oh, they're yours. They're my drawings yet? They're not bad. Not okay. Yeah. And during COVID, I am a bit of watercolour. Yeah. And art galleries. I mean, a huge shout out if anyone's interested in London at the moment. Amazing, free exhibition on St Francis in the National Gallery. If you want to pop down and have a look at it, which has the robe that St Francis himself wore in the 12th century has incredible manuscripts, but also paintings and artwork going right the way through to the current day, including film clips on St Francis. So there's my art gallery recommendation. I don't, I'm the worst, probably not the worst, but I can't paint and I can't draw. And I really wish that I could. I really admire that. But you're much, much better at music than I am. So there we are. Yeah, but I just wish I could. And I have had a go. Actually, we've got an artist, Sarah Pichstone, who lives just up the road from us. And she did help me. I did a painting for a charity. It was actually to raise funds for a swine pool down in the West Country. And I, and actually it wasn't bad. It wasn't bad with her at my side telling me what to do. But I would, I would need to have that if I was to, if I was to paint. I do like wonder, I do like wonder around art galleries and times to time. Well, my, my complete fantasy, if I was going to do something, if I'd managed to retire, I'd love to make pots. I love ceramics. I love the feeling of clay. I'm just an awe of Chinese ceramics, Islamic ceramics, Japanese ceramics. I'd love to be a potter. Okay, there you go. So I'm see when Rory Stewart becomes a potter, he can come along and teach your students how to pot. Well, I've got a good one for you here. Could you both give an example? The fun side of politics is if the story involved even better, any fun stories from politics outside. Oh, well, actually, I can remember one in Japan. Got it. We had a gathering recently for Tony Blair's 70th birthday and there's lots of people who were, you know, basically people who worked for him the whole time. And people were remembering some very, very, very good fun times. And I think I've told you this story about Tony once, sort of impersonating an Ulster unionist in the bath in Hillsborough Castle. But the one that popped into my head because we've been talking about Japan was when I got a message that he wanted to see me. And this was, he was in his bedroom at the British Embassy in Tokyo. And I walked through and he discovered, he discovered the crash helmet under the bed in case of an earthquake. And there was something surreal about walking in to see Tony Blair lying on his bed, wearing a crash helmet, pretending that he was in the middle of an earthquake. So, you know, we had, we did have a, we had a good laugh quite a lot of the time. And I also think there is a fun in campaigning. I mean, campaigns, they can be hellish and as Bill Clinton once, an election campaigns are the one form of activity that makes every look like their passport photo. But elections can be very, very good fun. I can think of lots of really, really good moments. What about you? When did you have fun? I think, I think what's amazing about being a politician is that it's one of those rare professions which actually allows you to get into everybody else's house. And I think there are a couple of other professions that might like you, that maybe a police officer, maybe some kinds of journalists, but basically people often live quite a limited life. You see your friends and you go to their houses. But as a politician, you can, with your constituents, you're knocking on doors, you're going to every village, and you're going to see everything from the grandest houses to the most remote, outlying farms to going into people's caravans. And I, I, I loved it. I, I'm quite nosy. And I, I loved the privilege of being able to see every different type of life being able to spend time in the travel community or spend time with, you know, help with lambing. There's a lot of, there's a lot of participation. I mean, I spend a lot of times a politician in strange vehicles, canoes, driving tractors, driving a mole plow, riding horses. All as part of being constituency MP. I mean, there's a lot of, a lot of fun to be had there, particularly if, if like me, you're lucky enough to represent a remote rural constituency. I don't think it would be quite the same if I was representing SLAO. Yeah, but it wouldn't have way because you're absolutely right. It's the same with journalism. I think the thing I used to love about being a journalist is that you could literally walk up to anybody anywhere and start talking to them. Hi, I'm Alex DeCamp from the Daily Mirror. I'm doing a piece about X. And it's incredible. 95 times I never hundred people would talk to you. Yeah, I totally love it. And I think it's, it's, yeah, I would, I'd recommend as a way of getting to know your fellow man. You're very using this as good. So final question. What books were reading? I put another plug in for Raphael Baez, amazing politics, a survivor's guide. Wonderful, wonderful book. It's, it's great on Russia. It's great on populism. It's great on Britain. And another book strongly recommended, I'm in Japan. It's called Lost Japan by Alex Kerr. And a lot of these recommendations on Japanese books came from Twitter. So I'm hugely, hugely grateful to Twitter that's, that's fantastic if anyone's ever looking for a book. It's just such a brilliant way of, of getting book around the nations. That is one of the best, I agree with you about the social media gets a lot of flak deservedly. But actually, when you say, when you put things out like anybody know a good book about so and so does anybody know a nice restaurant in such and such an area? It is amazing how nice people are about sending you information about stuff like that. I, I think it's just absolutely brilliant. And then, and then finally I, you know, I mentioned Tanaka Kakuya. So in our distribution, I'm going to send a book with a lovely article about Tanaka Kakuya. I am currently reading a book that was sent to me by my good friend, Karl Bernstein. And it's a book not about Watergate, it's about his life as a young reporter. And any young reporter out there or somebody who wants just to aspire to be journalist, it's just a brilliant, brilliant account of, and you get a sense of why he became one of the greatest journalists of all time. And it's just about his relentless curiosity. And I think that curiosity is one of the most important characteristics for all of us, frankly, but obviously for journalism. And the other thing that I'm, that I'm reading is it's a short history of Germany. And it's called how we became what we are obviously off-douch. Very, very good. Well, thank you, Alison. Have a, you know, good luck on the continuing extraordinary success you'll book tour and look forward to speaking again next week. A book tour which I will be suspending for the afternoon as I am due to go to court and be a witness in the Prince Harry case. About which we'll hear more in the next podcast coming up soon. Thank you. All the best. Bye-bye. A cast powers the world's best podcast. Here's the show that we recommend. Listeners, I am Danny K. White and much to my own surprise, I am a decluttering expert. I'm the creator of the No Mess decluttering method and host of the podcast, Aslaub comes clean. As I figure out ways to keep my own home under control, I share the truth about cleaning, organizing, and decluttering strategies that work in real life for real people, people who don't love cleaning and organizing. I teach strategies I developed by working through my own clutter. In episode 376, I shared three moments when you should hesitate and declutter. Like when I think I need to buy more hangers, I actually need to declutter my closet. If you've heard naturally organized people talk and felt like they were speaking a language you did not understand, come join us at Aslaub comes clean, the podcast. You might just find your people. A cast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. A cast.com