What should senior politicians do after politics? Disappear into obscurity, earn enormous sums of money on the speech circuit or by lobbying for dodgy high-finance outfits, or start a buddyish podcast? The last example has been notably set by the former cabinet minister Rory Stewart and Labour’s one-time director of communications Alastair Campbell with their highly successful The Rest Is Politics show.
The format, with its reliance on blokeish repartee, is not for everyone, and most former PMs would doubtless struggle to make the transition from statesmanship to banter, with the obvious exception of Boris Johnson, who never could distinguish between the two. In any case, pontificating for digital download would look a bit of a comedown for anyone who once ran the country – however badly they ran it.
