Alistair Campbell on Channel 4 with Rory Stewart

Rory is on LBC radio tonight from 8pm with Iain Dale if anyone wants to ask him about this?

I would be do disappointed if my daughter turned out as Grace has been described. I would find it enraging.

I think men like AC see this issue as fringe so not worth their time or attention. They don't care about women's sports or refuges or prisons. None of this will ever affect their lives or the lives of their wife / daughters so they shrug their shoulders and conclude people are making a fuss over nothing.

I think there's also misogyny and ageism at play, eye rolling at the po faced "dinosaurs" getting upset about toilet facilities and changing rooms.

No, I do not believe they do understand

Being intelligent doesn’t of itself bestow knowledge or thought about a particular subject.

Yes. No doubt about it. They are both highly intelligent men. Of course they must understand the implications for everyone. Which is what makes their position on this even harder to tolerate.

@RoyalCorgi It's come as a shock to find that other people, especially people whose very job involves debating political issues, arrive at their views without apparently putting any thought into them whatsoever.

I have met various politicians at various levels. The thing you have to remember, is that they have to be able to have an informed-sounding opinion on a vast number of things at a moment's notice - graffiti in the shopping precinct, Israel, potholes, prison sentencing, llama farming...etc etc

So a lot of times they don't actually think about the evidence and just regurgitate whatever they've been told by their aides, or their party line, or whatever sounds soothing and non-confrontational ("Everyone deserves respect!""We support everyone to live their best life!") without actually thinking about the deeper effects.

And do people genuinely want more than a meaningless soundbite from politicians anyway? Reform are doing very well in the polls off policies that are clearly deeply flawed of you put any level of thought into it.
Cynic? Me?!

I think there's a psychological reflex around this for some straight men, especially older ones who were terrified of being accused of gayness or effeminacy (which was viewed as practically the same thing) when they were young.

Over the past 30 years they have learned to examine their kneejerk horror and put it aside, and now they don't mind being in close proximity with men they know to be gay. They are also in the process of relaxing around effeminacy, and because they are still completely thinking from their own position they are lumping crossdressing of all types in with effeminacy. And they are broadly right - it doesn't matter, let people wear what they want, etc.

And their kids - who are teens/twenties - are SO super chill about it all, and telling they're dinosaurs if they don't see that TWAW etc, that they have just switched their brains off and filed the whole thing under "things I was wrong about before and am ashamed of my previous behaviour, but now have changed my mind about."

The refusal to engaged with JKR is projection. She is not coming at this from the position of a reformed homophobe, like most straight men of a certain age are.

Having done the job in a particular area does not make you an expert on all the things they profess to be, though. Or someone that has taken the time to understand all the viewpoints and give them fair consideration.

That's the problem when you espouse obvious bullshit in an area. Raises doubts that it's a one-off.

They get it - no doubt about that. It’s not possible to be very switched on and articulate on all political issues - as these people are - and then play dumb / trot out cliches about vulnerable minorities on this ONE point. They’re clinging on to their woke credentials but lose credibility when they do so.

They are extremely privileged white middle aged (or older) white males, women’s issues don’t come up - you aren’t going to get balanced views but AC imv is carried by RS- I would never listen if it was AC only. Maybe RS will move on to greater things.

I have a similar problem with Last Week Tonight, once I saw how little his team were willing to learn about the damage transing a child can cause, I started to wonder what else in his show was lightly researched bullshit.

They are too arrogant to read about the issue, think they know everything already, and think it is like being gay and a no-harm-done lifestyle. Also men at arms together types. That’s my guess.

I think you're absolutely right. And yet I still can't quite get past my initial reaction, which is: How is it possible to be that stupid?

I've always worked on the assumption that people who are (apparently) intelligent and educated arrive at their political positions by thinking them through first. This is how I have arrived at my political views - every issue that I have an opinion on is something I have thought about at length, weighing up the arguments. It's come as a shock to find that other people, especially people whose very job involves debating political issues, arrive at their views without apparently putting any thought into them whatsoever.

They are too arrogant to read about the issue, think they know everything already, and think it is like being gay and a no-harm-done lifestyle. Also men at arms together types. That’s my guess.

Good point. Presumably, if their mothers were around when these men were children, they did a fair amount of work, too? 🧐

Rory's mum sounds great - all the more disappointing that he doesn't get it.

Even now, I feel puzzled as to why so many don't understand the issue. It seems so simple to me. Humans can't change sex. As soon as you start pretending that they do, you inevitably create massive problems. Why is it that some people can grasp that and others can't?

Yes of course they are! They are in and around politicians all the time. Rory was a diplomat in Iraq, then a minister in the Conservatives and Alistair was in the Blair government. They have both actually done the job for a substantial periods. Therefore experts in a real sense (not an armchair, got a degree in it sense).

(COP out)

Omg I was fucking infuriated too op!
Such a fucking co out AC!!!

The other thing that really pisses me off about the two of them is how they admit to having really fuck all to do with raising their own kids.

I remember listening to a TRIP pod ages ago where they discussed this and feeling so very disappointed in them both.

She sounds awesome. What a life, and had Rory at 37, which was considered quite late back then.

His Wikipedia page also only mentions his Dad’s occupation. I wonder how many Wiki pages of the famous do this?

That she has had such a varied, successful, interesting life and is reduced to just “wife” on his Wiki page is giving patriarchy:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rory_Stewart

@SuePreemly listening to what RS said about his mother, she has led a fascinating life. I’ve lifted the transcript of the episode here, it doesn’t specify who is talking where but you can figure it out fairly easily:

“So my mother was a GP's daughter, father was a doctor. She went to Oxford in the 1950s. My mother's down, staying with me in London at the moment.

I hope she is now old enough to not be embarrassed to hear. She's now 88 years old. We walked probably about three miles yesterday through the streets of London with my 88-year-old mother and my two little children.

So, thank goodness, touching wood all over the place, she's in very good form. But she went to Oxford, she worked for Television Wales. She jumped in a Land Rover and drove from London to Kuala Lumpur in the late 1950s.

For Television Wales?

Yeah, I worked for Television Wales, yeah.

What was she doing in Television Wales?

She was a producer and the way she describes it is those were the glory days of television. She was traveling first class on the train up and down to Wales. She loved the Welsh producers, very interested in Welsh language.

Anyway, then she moved to Kuala Lumpur. She became an advertising executive in Malaysia and then she taught at the University of Malaya, taught agricultural economics relating almost to your dad, met my father, came back to London and then we moved back to Malaysia and then Hong Kong where again she was different forms of academic. She ended up being the head of Hong Kong University Business School.

Blimey, she's got much longer adult CV than my mum.

Yeah, in a way you wouldn't really believe it if you met her. She's also incredibly interested in clothes and shoes. She's very laid back.

She loves doing her tapestry and reading trashy novels on the sofa. And she's also somebody, I don't know, she's a sort of counter example to the way that we're told to live our lives. She's somebody who took absolutely no exercise at any point in her entire existence.

And consequently age of 88 is really fit and well.

No, she's amazingly fit for 88, no doubt about that.

And I think her argument is she didn't wear her knees out unlike Joe Biden by doing whatever he was doing.”

From The Rest Is Politics: Question Time: Orban in person, Biden's fragility, and the subtle art of focus groups, 19 Jun 2024
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-rest-is-politics/id1611374685?i=1000659404863
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But are they knowledgeable? We know they're shit on the issue we know a lot about. Are we just giving them credit for issues we don't know about because they sound very confident?

Well Rory's father was my Grandpa's CO in Normandy then went on to lead MI6 I think, so I suspect his wife might have been typical of her generation and as a high ranking military wife, not worked? I am guessing here though.

I think its an overreaction to stop listening just because AC is not GC. It's a bit like cancel culture/purity spiralling. AC can be opinionated but at least he is clear what his opinions are. And Rory and he are very knowledgeable especially on global politics.

Electoral Dysfunction is great and all women (Ruth Davidson, Beth Rigby and Jess Phillips)
I listen to both but sometimes TRiP is a bit to much mens opinions for me.