Burnham’s Worldview, Trump's Ceasefire Collapse, and Advising Count Binface

**Rory Stewart** (0:01)
On Monday, Andy Burnham is going to walk into Downing Street as our new Prime Minister. And all the questions initially are going to be about getting growth going and applying what Andy Burnham calls the Maker Field Test to foreign policy. How is what Britain's doing in the world going to make difference to people on the ground? How's power going to be redistributed? But that doesn't get rid of the fundamental question, which is what is Britain's place in the world? What is our new Prime Minister going to make of Trump, of China, of AI, of Russia, of defense? The honest answer is, I think, we barely know. We might even ask whether British politics, domestic politics actually allows us to have a serious conversation about the really big issues that are going to define our lives abroad and at home. We've had a lot of questions about Andy Burnham's worldview, and we're going to get into some of them now in Question Time.
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**Alastair Campbell** (2:17)
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**Alastair Campbell** (2:53)
Welcome to The Rest Is Politics Question Time with me, Alastair Campbell.

**Rory Stewart** (2:55)
And with me, Rory Stewart.
So, question time. Well, we have had questions on Andy Burnham, about to take over as our Prime Minister, and what on earth it means to try to create a foreign policy when you're coming from being Mayor of Manchester. We've had questions, a lot of them, on what's happening in Iran. How did this peace fire collapse, and what does it mean for the world? We'll be talking about climate emergency, and we'll be talking particularly there about a lot of questions that have come in, about whether we're underestimating the national security implications of climate. We will be talking about Count Binface, the amazing candidate who's running against Nigel Farage. And we might, if we have time, get on to the question of this meditation retreat from which I've just emerged. Anyway, where do you want to start, Alastair?

**Alastair Campbell** (3:43)
So Rory, Olivia, recognising that Andy Burnham is about to become our Prime Minister, wants to know how difficult is it to get the balance right between domestic and foreign policy? Very, very hard is the answer. Very, very hard. Do you want to have a go at that?

**Rory Stewart** (3:58)
Yeah, well, it's a hell of a question, isn't it? Because Andy Burnham is in some ways, I think, a bit of a mystery on this. It's very difficult. I mean, you've known him forever since he was in his early 20s. And yet almost nobody I know who knows him well is really able to tell me what his foreign policy vision is or what is he going to use on artificial intelligence style. So there's that one question. What does he think? Second question, which I'd love to get into with you, is what's the team that he's going to build? So if he's not an expert on this stuff, how much is Jonathan Powell going to be at the center of defining what UK foreign policy is, the National Security Advisor, who he's retained? And what is Jonathan Powell's worldview going to be going forward? And then thirdly, how is domestic politics and his experience at Wakefield going to play into the kind of choices he has? Big example there, that he was running in a constituency which voted two-thirds for Brexit. So that, of course, immediately constrained the freedom that he might have on getting much closer to Europe. So a lot of things to get into.