Alistair Campbell

But I also think the truth is, you've gone through with some of the names you've mentioned, that in politics and in government,

You have to shake hands with a lot of people that you wouldn't necessarily want to go on holiday with them.

During the Northern Ireland peace process, I definitely shook hands with quite a lot of people who'd killed people.

I remember once meeting a guy who had been on the IRA Army Council and somebody told me afterwards that he was the guy who really knew...

how to do the bombs and made them and all the rest of it.

So Putin gets close because, of course, the other definition, I think, of political evil, you know, at the moment, President Zelensky is responsible for a lot of deaths of Russians, just as the Russians are responsible for a lot of deaths of Ukrainians.

Putin also does kill some of his own people.

We mentioned Navalny.

Fiona and I were in the car last week.

We were listening to this amazing book, London Falling, by Patrick Radden Keefe.

No, I didn't.

Is this what you just said, 50?

But one of the sections of the book...

where he's just going through, because Russia gets involved in it at a certain point, just going through all the people who kind of fell out of windows.

And I'm reading at the moment, I'm now reading the book Nord Stream Conspiracy.

And again, Putin and his ability to, I mean, honestly, Angela Merkel has not come well out of this book because basically you get the sense that Russia is

playing her and keeping her in the Nord Stream thing.

Anyway, it's a bit like London Falling.

It's a non-fiction book written as an absolute thriller.

So Putin sort of weaves in and out all these terrible stories.