Speaker
Alastair Campbell
Appearances over time
7 episodes
Episodes
7
550. Will Farage's Extreme Wealth Be His Downfall?
549. Mamdani’s Wrecking Ball and the Rise of Anti-Migrant Vigilantes
548. Burnham vs. Westminster and Trump’s Next Target
547. The Truth About Russian Oil, Net Zero, and North Sea Drilling
546. Keir Starmer Resigns: What Happens Next?
545. Burnham Beats Reform: Britain’s Next Prime Minister?
544. How Trump Is Weaponising AI and Martial Arts at the White House
Podcasts
Quotes & moments
Andy Burnham won the Makerfield by-election with 55% of all ballots cast, a commanding majority in a former Reform stronghold.
Only 6% of British tax revenues are collected by local government, compared to 32% in Germany, 24% in Spain, and 14% in France.
Farage declared £270,000 from bullion dealer Direct Bullion for 12 hours of work, equating to £22,500 per hour.
Andy Burnham will become Britain's seventh Prime Minister in the decade since the 2016 Brexit referendum — a rate of leadership turnover that rivals Italy's historically volatile politics.
Starmer's 2024 election majority was the third largest in Labour history, after Tony Blair's wins in 1997 and 2001 — making his swift departure within two years all the more remarkable.
Direct Bullion's payment to Farage was double what the same company paid him just 9 months earlier.
Alastair Campbell confirmed Andy Burnham would become UK Prime Minister by the third week of July, succeeding Keir Starmer without a contested leadership election.
Farage received £5 million described as a 'gift' from Christopher Harborne, a crypto billionaire based in Thailand.
Despite campaigning primarily on growth, the Starmer government never articulated a coherent growth strategy, with Campbell admitting he always struggled to identify its key components.
A 23% swing from Reform to Labour was recorded in the seats Reform had taken from Labour in the May local elections.
Makerfield had the sixth-highest Reform vote of any constituency at the last general election, making Burnham's win even more striking.
Starmer's government cut the winter fuel payment to signal fiscal discipline, then U-turned under pressure — gaining no credit for either the original decision or the reversal, leaving an impression of weak political authority.
When non-voters are factored in, only approximately one in five of the total eligible British population actually voted Labour in the 2024 election, despite Labour's historic parliamentary majority.
Only 13% of Americans thought the UFC event on the White House lawn was a good use of the venue, with even Republicans only 1-in-3 in favour.
The G7 summit started one day later than originally scheduled because Trump wanted to hold his UFC birthday event first, illustrating his personal priorities overriding diplomatic schedules.
The counterargument says America won't cut Europe off — they need our markets and our data. But Rory Stewart says betting on that goodwill is like Shaka Zulu assuming the Industrial Revolution won't reach him. The Eurofighter was never as good as the F-35, but at least it existed when you needed it.
The US can bet on every defence capability simultaneously. The UK cannot. Aircraft carriers need a support fleet we can't afford. The GCAP fighter arrives in 2040, by which time drone warfare may have made it irrelevant. The real investment needed is in the engineers and industrial capacity to produce new software every 6 weeks.
Trump moved the G7 summit start date by a day so he could hold a UFC birthday event on the White House lawn. Only 13% of Americans approved. One fighter thanked Trump and then claimed Michelle Obama is a man. It was, as Rory put it, quite Roman Empire.
Fujimori vs Sánchez in Peru: 9,036,046 votes to 9,034,743. A margin of 0.008%. The votes are now in the courts, Sánchez is demanding a recount, and no one knows who will be president. Alastair Campbell says he's never followed a foreign election this closely — and may never see a closer one.
Alastair Campbell publicly pledged not to attend the Trump-hosted World Cup. Scotland qualified and their fans' Flower of Scotland was recorded as the loudest moment in World Cup history. Now he's between a rock and a hard place — and openly wondering whether he'd forgive himself for going.
John Healey's resignation letter included a cryptic line about 'other ways of raising money without causing too much trouble in the markets.' What it referred to was the Canadian-proposed Defence Security and Resilience Bank — a vehicle for defence investment that avoids hitting fiscal rules. The Treasury blocked it. The gap between defence need and fiscal reality has never been wider.
Alastair Campbell invoked the German concept of 'banalisation' — the process by which the AfD became normalised in German media — and argued Trump has already been fully banalised in the US and UK press. A Democrat friend told him to stop getting angry about the UFC event because that's exactly what Trump wants. Campbell rejected the advice.
Over 100 first languages are spoken at Anthropic. The presenters at AI conferences across America are German, South Asian, Iranian. Silicon Valley's greatness is an immigrant story. Restricting advanced AI access to US citizens alone doesn't just hurt allies — it guts the workforce that built the technology in the first place.
Pete Hegseth cheerfully declared Anthropic a bad company and celebrated blocking its export. Anthropic responded by asking the administration to explain the specific grounds so it could understand what differentiated its model from competitors. The Trump administration's inability to separate genuine security concern from corporate grudge is the central problem.
Two and a half years ago AI could barely do A-level maths. Now it approaches advanced graduate-level work. A human software programmer's 48-hour task takes AI about one minute. The speed of this change makes every 15-year procurement plan obsolete before it starts.
Ukraine is a war of cheap hovering drones and frozen frontlines. Iran was the dream of US-Israeli planners — exquisite expensive aircraft taking out all air defences in 24 hours. Britain has to decide which model it is building for, and neither answer justifies a fighter jet that won't arrive until 2040.
Keir Starmer is a losing proposition — the ship heading into an iceberg. Getting off the ship into the lifeboats may not work, but there is no serious case for staying with a Prime Minister who cannot make a speech, has no economic definition, and cannot win the next election.
Alastair Campbell, who says he has spoken to key insiders, believes Andy Burnham could be Prime Minister by Labour's conference in late September. The process depends entirely on Keir Starmer's reaction — but with Betfair at 94%, the markets have already made their call.
Andy Burnham won Makerfield with 55% of the vote and a 20-point lead over Reform — in a constituency that had the sixth-highest Reform vote at the last general election and where Labour trailed by 20 points in local elections weeks earlier. Even combining Reform and Restore's votes wouldn't have beaten him.
The US has restricted its most capable AI model to American citizens only — not because it's an existential threat, but because it's a competitive weapon. If this is the future, Europe is already in the position of a country that doesn't own its own electricity grid.
Analysis
What they talk about
- News 46%
- Government 43%
- Society & Culture 11%
Connections
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