Welcome to a special edition of the REST as politics with me, Rory Stewart and me, Anastak Campbell.

We are very, very fortunate because we have managed to, having had so far two guests, Tony

Blair and Keir Starmer. Quite rightly, people are pointing out that we are not covering

the full political spectrum, so we are very, very fortunate today to have somebody I admire

and see who is William Hague, who anybody who is listening ought to have a good sense

who he is, but he was, of course, the British Foreign Secretary, and he was the leader of

the Conservative Party, in fact, when Anastak Campbell was working with Tony Blair, and he

is with us today. Now, let me just start, maybe, by giving Anastak Campbell a little bit

on the more distant days of Tony Blair and William Hague and Primus' questions, and because

obviously, William Hague was standing opposite Tony Blair across that to the matchbox.

William, thank you very, very much for joining us. We are very grateful, but I do want to

start with those wonderful days when it felt like Labour were going to be in power forever.

We had a huge three-figure majority, and Week in Week out, you came along and landed

a few blows on Tony Blair, but then come the election thereafter, we had another three-figure

majority. I guess what I'd like to start off with is, we talk a lot on this podcast

about the kind of psychology of leadership and how you feel, and I just want to say, did

you ever, what did it feel like when you were up against Tony Blair in his pomp?

Well, thank you for that. That's an interesting, only prayer. Hello, Rory, hello, Alistair.

Great pleasure to join you. It felt pretty good when I was at the dispatch box against

it, because then, as you know, that was the one time, really, that I felt I was on equal

terms with him. Well, it was in my own environment, maybe on more than equal terms, because I had

nothing else going for me at all, as Alistair will very well recall, and indeed, you were

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