GRACE and Frankie, Felix and Oscar, Ross and Rachel… Audiences across the globe have always loved unlikely duos. But there is a new Odd Couple on the block that is electrifying the political commentary world.
For regular listeners of The Rest is Politics (TRIP), it will come as no surprise that it was a creation of two Burnley F.C. fans. Executive producer Tony Pastor knew Alastair Campbell (66) from a mutual love of the club. One day, Campbell was asked by Pastor, “If you had to choose someone from the Tory party to speak to every week about politics, who would you choose?” And Alastair said, “I think Rory Stewart would be amazing”. And, well The Rest is… Politics.
Despite them being “such an unlikely duo” with “amazing chemistry,” Nicole Maslen (24), an English Literature graduate who landed her dream role as a producer on TRIP last September, says: “They’re very different in their personalities, but opposites completely attract. Just listening to their conversations can be really humorous and entertaining, as well as enlightening about the state of the world.”
Campbell, a father of three and best known for his time as Tony Blair’s spin-doctor, began his career as an adult content writer for Forum Magazine, under the pseudonym Riviera Gigolo. After a successful career as a journalist for multiple papers, including being the political editor for The Mirror, he went on to work with Blair as his press secretary and later as director of communications for No.10. Recently, in 2019, he was suspended from the Labour party following the fact that he had voted for the Liberal Democrats in the European elections. Since then, he has gone on to release two books, both Sunday Times best-sellers, and co-host one of the fastest growing podcasts in the country. Though Campbell has a reputation that precedes him, I can assure readers that he has mellowed since his days of having colourful interactions with the press.
On-the-other-hand, Stewart (50), who has had a career with little resemblance to his co-host’s, has also found great success in the art of agreeably disagreeing with left-wing Campbell. Stewart served throughout Theresa May’s government and ended up as Secretary of State for International Development, and so he is no stranger to the political world. As a Conservative MP for Penrith and The Border, he was elected three times and concluded his parliamentary career by going Independent for his last three months. Having recently released an instant Sunday Times best-seller, his prominence is on the rise once again.
Likening Campbell to an eccentric relative, Stewart told Elizabeth Day on her podcast How to Fail, that he had asked ChatGPT if a show hosted by the duo would succeed, to which he was confronted: “with a nine-point explanation of why it would never work.” Adding that sometimes he feels the show can be a bit trivial.
From discussions about international events making the headlines, to answering questions sent in by guests, the couple make for a lively way to receive your daily dose of current affairs. But is the dissimilar tone to other podcasts what separates TRIP from the crowd? As with every great show, there is an amazing team working behind the scenes.
Maslen, who says that the show “marries the two things” she loves, podcasts and politics, believes that the success of the show can be attributed to: “Rory and Alastair’s appeal to that very large middle-ground audience, because they are slightly to the left, slightly to the right, but in general, just very sensible people, who are really knowledgeable, and have ideas that are not completely polarised.”
Discussing an audience fed-up of polarisation, Maslen said that: “People are sick of it. A lot of elections are won on the middle ground, they’re won on swing voters, people who could go either way.
“That’s how elections get won. So, that is a massive audience obviously of people who are a little bit left-wing, a little bit right-wing, not really sure, or they can kind of flip-flop depending on their own economic circumstance or the circumstance of the country,” she added.
Goalhanger Podcasts, the company behind TRIP, has released a new long-form interview show called Leading, which is also hosted by Campbell and Stewart. Maslen said that having esteemed guests such as Theresa May and Sir John Major on Leading, which she also produces, left her “pinching” herself. She said: “they don’t do lots of interviews and both of their teams when they left were like ‘We’ve never seen them so relaxed and they seem really happy with this’ which is lovely to hear and speaks really well of Rory and Alastair and their ability as interviewers.”
The 24-year-old producer noted that her favourite of the 40 interviews so far was with Jonathan Powell. Having previously held the position of chief of staff for Tony Blair, Powell’s interview stood out as one of the relatively uncomfortable ones – an uncommon occurrence stemming from a disagreement with Stewart regarding his stance on Iraq. Despite their differences, the interview concluded amicably, with Stewart commending Powell’s composure, to which Powell responded: “That’s why I spend my time talking to terrorists,” referring to his career in mediating.
Given that interviews are typically recorded months ahead of their release, you might expect that listeners would have more insight into upcoming prominent guests on Leading. While the list of individuals the show is aiming to feature keeps expanding, at present, Maslen is particularly eager to secure bookings with Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf and his predecessor, Nicola Sturgeon. Campbell also posted a video on Instagram Stories this month with Kwasi Kwarteng, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer for the Truss government, saying that he had agreed to be interviewed on the show too.
In the past 30-days, the show has attracted 6.8m listeners from around the globe, a figure that keeps growing. With a General Election looming, Maslen, who was recently asked by a friend in the pub if TRIP would start their own centre-party and run for election, reckons that the podcast will need to become much more domestic, saying:
“I think the nature of the pod will be slightly different when it’s an election year”.
She reckoned that the team will be extremely busy in 2024 and will likely produce “slightly less of the international stuff”. One thing was for sure though, “It’s gonna be big!”
