Alastair Campbell

just mutate live on air in order to try and win the approval.

And I realize it's penance.

I think it's a combination of burning bridges, consciously burning, or burning boats, better metaphor, burning boats, like you can never go back.

You need to denounce your former party and your former colleagues.

So this is a one-way valve.

I think part of it's that, but the other part of it

is ritual humiliation as some kind of purity test of themselves and um well it's famous in every gangster movie isn't it you you have to actually to really show your loyalty like go shoot your old boss you yeah yeah exactly exactly and this is what they're this is what they're doing and everyone can see that's what they're doing and ultimately and i don't know when i mean you you ask

you know, the question I was meant to answer, and I kind of slightly avoided, like, how do we deal with this?

Don't do what you believe to be wrong.

Starting point for a good life.

Don't do something you fundamentally believe to be wrong, even if that thing is superficially popular, because people do see through it.

And if ultimately, even if they don't, even if ultimately, and what was it, all political careers end in failure.

At some point in the future, when I get rid of this beard, I'm going to have to look at myself in the shaving mirror and

and ask, did I fundamentally do what I believed in or did I just do what I needed to do to get me elected?

And if you can't say, I did what I believe to be right, then frankly, what is the point?

What is the point in getting involved in politics?

The money ain't that great.

You get slagged off on social media.

And, you know, if you're really, really lucky, you get some very lucrative book deals like you and your bête noire, Boris Johnson.

But most of us don't.