Speaker
Rory Stewart
Appearances over time
6 episodes
Episodes
6
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
AI can now do what a human software programmer does in 48 hours in about one minute, compared to 2.5 years ago when it could only replicate about half an hour of work per minute.
Brad Lander defeated two-term AIPAC-backed incumbent Dan Goldman by a 30-point margin in the New York Democratic primary, backed by Mamdani.
US Frontier AI Labs are likely to spend over $740 billion over the next 2–3 years, a scale that makes sovereign European AI infrastructure extremely costly to replicate.
Despite Labour trailing Reform by 20 points in local elections just weeks earlier, Burnham won with a 20-point lead over Reform.
Dariel Azar Chevalier, aged 33, defeated five-term incumbent Adriano Espaillat, chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, in New York's 13th district.
Mamdani's endorsed candidates won in wildly contrasting districts — one with a median income of $120,000 and 61% graduates, another with a median of $52,000.
The US spends approximately one trillion dollars a year on defence, enabling it to bet on every capability simultaneously — a luxury the UK cannot afford.
A Public First report found £19 billion in national funds were allocated by Tory and Labour governments to less affluent areas, yet those areas still swung heavily to Reform or Restore.
Hartlepool received £974 per head in levelling-up funding since 2016, compared to just £1–£3 per head for councils in London.
Pew surveys show negative views of Israel among Democrats surged from 53% in 2022 to 80% in 2026, driven by the war in Gaza.
The GCAP fighter jet being developed with Italy and Japan won't be delivered until 2040, raising serious questions about its relevance in a world increasingly defined by drones and AI.
The Public First analysis found a counterintuitive correlation: controlling for poverty and diversity, the more levelling-up money an area received, the more likely its residents were to vote Reform or Restore.
For the first time in decades, Americans overall are more pro-Palestinian than pro-Israeli, according to polling cited in the episode.
Labour's vote share fell 19 points in Aberdeen South and 18 points in Arbroath — the opposite trajectory to Makerfield.
Singapore, often cited as a free-market economy, has 80% public housing — but achieved through state land ownership, compulsory savings, and strong override powers against opposition.
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 36%
- Government 30%
- Technology 17%
- Society & Culture 11%
- Business 3%
- Science 3%
Connections
Shows they appear on and people they share episodes with. Drag to explore.
