The Rest Is Politics: 126. King Charles III's coronation, the geopolitics of net-zero, and the power of oracy

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Welcome to The Restless Politics with me, Rory Stewart and me, Alistair Campbell.

We've got a lot to get through today, Rory. We're going to talk about the coronation of your friend, the king.

We're going to talk about the energy crisis across Europe and particularly something you've been picking up about worries in Germany.

We're going to give a little plug to our splendid leading interview with Tony Blair.

And we're going to talk about the BBC, ex-chairman and what the future of the BBC might be and what sort of person they should get.

And we're also going to talk about something called Orocy, which is, well, we'll explain what is later in the show.

And Alistair, I'm seeing you in a bookshop with your books behind you. Just a quick reminder, book now on sale.

They're not my books. I'm in the stockroom of a bookstore where once we've recorded the podcast, I'm going to sign,

I think it's about 700 books that Restless Politics listeners have asked for personal dedications.

I will have RSI by the end of the day. So I'm in the stockroom and you'll be pleased to know, Rory,

given you're the arch monarchist in the team and the coronation is one of the things that we're going to talk about,

you can see that they've put out a load of Union flags behind me.

That's right, presumably for your benefit.

Where is yours?

Well, I feel ashamed now I see that you are doing a podcast with a Union jack behind you and I will try to sort that out in future.

So Rory, will you easily be able to find a Union flag in Amman? Will they be on sale?

Are people in Jordan getting ready for the coronation? I see it's live on Al Jazeera.

I've been thinking about this a lot actually because I was imagining that I was going to be assaulted by you

because you are, of course, under the surface basically a Republican despite some occasional expressions of sympathy for the monarchy.

But I've been thinking about it. One of the things that I think fascinates the world is ritual.

And I think one of the problems that many people, many of my friends have in Britain is with the whole idea of ritual.

They don't like the idea of symbolic traditional ceremonies. It makes them uncomfortable.

But the rest of the world is suffused with them.

I mean, I've sat in Pakistan for weddings which take literally four days where you have a day dedicated to turmeric on the face,

a day dedicated to henna, or in Java where you, you know, the groom breaks an egg with his foot and the bride throws a beetle nut.

So much the rest of the world is much, much more comfortable in weddings, in funerals, in presidential inaugurations with ritual.

But hold on. We are, you talk about ritual. I mean, we're going to have an absolute surfeit of ritual,

added to which they've now added to the sense of ritual by announcing that we're all sitting in front of our tellies watching the coronation

supposed to join in this chorus of millions to swear allegiance to the king and his heirs.

Now, you, I presume, Rory, being a kind of very, very firmly established member of the establishment and with your own royal connections,

I presume you won't be in front of the telly that you'll be in the nave.

Well, I think wherever one is, one's meant to be swearing allegiance.

Can I, you're avoiding the question. You're avoiding, Rory is going to be televised, is going to be televised.

You'll be filmed arriving. Are you going to be in the nave or not?

I think at the moment we're holding off answering those kind of questions.

I think even David Beckham hasn't said whether he's going to be there.

It's the first one. I don't really know who's going to be there.

But you'll find out. Obviously listeners will find out.

Well, we know, we know the former prime ministers are going to be there.

Are you going to be sitting behind or in front of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss?

Can I, can I avoid your question and give you, give you just a little bit of context for listeners on this allegiance?

So what used to happen and one of the strange things I think that the Archbishop of Canterbury,

who's suggested that people should be invited to do this, has been struggling with,

is that the last coronation obviously was 70 years ago in a very, very different world and a very different society.

When you watch that coronation, it's extraordinary because you have all these ancient dukes and peers

with their crowns coming on and off their heads.

And they were all meant to come up at that coronation one after another.

I think it was clergy, then the royal family, then the dukes, then the marquises, all in order.

And they were supposed to say, I become your leech man of life and limb and of earthly worship

and faith and truth that I will bear unto you to live and die against all manner of folks.

So help me God.

So I guess the problem facing the Archbishop was, what's he going to do about that?

So presumably you'd agree as a starting point,

it wouldn't have been very suitable today to have a procession of dukes, marquises and earls

walking up, pledging their truth and nobody else saying anything.

It depends, Rory, how much we are attached to old ritual, which you just told me a moment ago, we are attached to.

Well, obviously, I quite like that.

I'm loving the way, I'm loving the way I'm sensing here that this kite having been flown

and it's not flying quite the direction that people want to,

it's now all being landed upon the Archbishop of Canterbury as opposed to the royal household.

But carry on with your excellent destination so far.

Well, so I guess the point is that they've changed the ceremony a lot

and I think there are a lot of things about it which are, which are smart.

I think a really, really good improvement.

So it's going to begin with processions of faith leaders from all faiths

and instead of what would have happened in the past, which is most of these amazing bits of royal rituals.

So there are, there's a glove, there's, there's three different swords,

there are two different septers, there are orbs, there are cloaks.

These things used to be generally handed over by ancient members of the aristocracy

who had inherited these responsibilities, some of them in sort of 15 parts over 900 years.

But this time around, a lot of them are going to be done by people like your friend,

Baroness Helena Kennedy.

There's going to be members of the House of Lords, but they're mostly life peers.

So Seyit Karmal, who's a conservative Muslim,

a life pair is doing the armills, which are the bracelets.

Julian Merrin, who's a labour peer and is from the board of British deputies,

is going to do the robe.

The Renderer Patel, who's a crossbencher, is doing the ring.

Indrajeet Singh, who's a 90 year old crossbencher, is going to do the glove.

So anyway, lots of different changes.

And I guess somewhere in the middle of trying to change it up

is this question of the South of Allegiance, which obviously really sticks in your gullet

and you don't like it.

Listen, I like the fact that the Archbishop's people,

when they were briefing it out at the weekend,

said there are going to be lots of new elements that reflect the diversity of contemporary society.

And you've alluded to some of those.

That was a very kind of multi-ethnic list of people that you read out there.

And that's great. I think that's a good thing.

I also like the fact that the languages of Britain, including Welsh with a hymn,

Scottish Gallic and Irish Gallic are all going to be used.

I think that's a good thing.

By the way, Rory, while we're on the subject of Welsh,

I don't know if you noticed, you got a lot of criticism from our Welsh listeners last week

who felt that the word they kept using was snorted.

You snorted at me trying to stress the importance of Welsh as a language.

So do you want to deal with that one?

Because you're a big fan of the Union.

You presumably support all the languages of the Union.

I do. I do.

And I'm actually very interested in Welsh because I was a Cumbrian MP.

And Cumbria is, of course, the Old North.

And it's where a lot of the most ancient Welsh literature comes from Cumbria.

The Gadodin happens just across the border.

I was snorting, I think, for a couple of things.

But one of them is I really hate lists.

And I think you produced the figure that it was the 50th most influential language in the world.

I have a Zippo idea how you arrive at the notion that it's the 50th most influential language.

I just said it was the world language barometer.

I don't know how they arrived at it.

So you weren't snorting the language. This is a firm rebuttal.

You were not snorting the language.

No. And actually, I want to take this opportunity to share my favourite Welsh word,

which I was reminded of by a friend of mine called Roger Pauli.

And the word is kuh-nevin, which is written C-Y-N-E-F-I-N.

And it signifies all the different factors in your environment that influence you

in ways that you can't understand.

Not just your sort of ecosystem, but temporal, physical, cultural, spiritual.

So that's my Welsh word for the day.

That's a good word. Well, I think that was a good comeback.

I think linking Cumbria to Wales, I think having a word up your sleeve, I think that was excellent.

Let's get back to the chorus of millions.

Now, you will be in the nave.

We've established that by your dodging my question.

We know that. And you'll be there.

And because you're quite an important person, you'll probably be there with your wife as well.

It's like even if I go to church, on the rare occasions I go to church,

I do find myself involuntarily sometimes joining in in the bits where you're meant to join in.

So I can understand why you will swear allegiance because the camera might be on you

and if you don't swear allegiance, you'll be in trouble.

But are we seriously expecting people in their sitting rooms to swear allegiance to the king and his heirs?

And given the theme of the service, as I understand it, is about being called to serve,

shouldn't the swearing of allegiance actually to be the idea of service to the country

or the Commonwealth even rather than to an individual, the new king? Discuss.

Yeah, I think very good challenge.

And I think this all goes to the heart of what we think about kings and what we think about our constitution.

We are a monarchy and a lot of bits, the army, for example, still do feel that they are pledging to a monarch rather than a country.

And it's part of not being a republic.

Look, I suppose the best argument that I saw against the mass invitation to swear allegiance was made in the Guardian

where there was an article saying the problem with it is that it causes problems for people who are neutral.

There are many, many people out there who don't want to be put in the position of having to either swear allegiance or make a statement by not doing so.

If it's the same piece I read, I think it was less about neutrality, more about indifference, people who don't really care.

So they don't want to be forced to make a choice?

Yeah.

And I can completely see that.

I can also see why they wanted to move away from the only oaths being made by the lords and the dukes.

But it's also similar things happen.

Remember, one of the things that I think may be stirring this up is that at the heart of the cultural wars in the US is the pledging allegiance to the flag.

So, you know, very close friends of mine, relatives of mine in the States, get very, very angry at being made to pledge allegiance to the flag in the United States.

I mean, let's just say what it is that we're expected to rise.

I'm not sure whether we're supposed to stay seated on the sofa in front of the TV or whether we stand to put our hand on our heart or on a Bible.

It's incidentally not compulsory.

It's okay.

But the words that we're invited to say together are, I swear that I will pay true allegiance to your Majesty.

He's there.

We're now assuming that he could hear us on our sofas and to your heirs and successors according to law.

So help me God.

So are we legally bound to swear allegiance to his Majesty and his successors?

So this is about George as well.

Yeah.

I don't know what the constitutional basis this is.

I mean, obviously in the Middle Ages, it was very, very fundamental, wasn't it?

Exactly.

Because they were the law.

They decided the laws.

I become your leech man of life and limb of earthly worship and faith and truth.

Yeah.

But we had a separation of powers, if you remember.

And we then had this parliament think cable on with they set the laws.

But now we've got the Archbishop telling us what the law is.

And as you know, Rory, I'm a fan of the Archbishop.

I like the Archbishop a lot.

Yeah.

Well, that's aside.

Let's get you on to the main thing.

What do you think about the main thing?

Do you enjoy the sense it's going to be a lot of ritual?

Do you think it's a waste of time, waste of money?

Are you happy because it only happens once every 70 years to not care too much about it?

What's your basic emotional reaction?

Well, I've got to say that given that Prince Charles has had the longest apprenticeship in history,

and I don't wish him ill at all, but it's not going to be another 70 years before the next one, is it?

Because if it is, he becomes the oldest person who ever lived.

First of all, will I watch it?

I probably will watch it.

Will I be interested in it?

I will be interested in it.

Will I find it both fascinating, but also slightly troubling?

I think I will.

I've always, I keep thinking I've said to you before,

my first ever major row with my mother was about my refusal to listen to Queen's Christmas Day message,

because I just didn't see what she had to do with my life as a six or seven year old, whatever I was.

And my mother felt that we should always sit down and listen to what her match had to say on Christmas Day.

And I do think there's something, I do think there's something quite strange about our relationship with the royal family.

And also, the reason why I think this thing is slightly backfired,

it goes back to the point you made about people don't like being told they have to do something.

And that was the, I know that wasn't the intention,

but that's how it was kind of projected through our, as ever, quite difficult media.

And it's why I don't enjoy weddings.

It's why I don't particularly enjoy Christmas.

We're all meant to feel the same and lots of people don't feel the same.

So that's very interesting.

I was going to ask about that because you're quite right to draw that analogy.

I think it is something like a wedding.

And formally, in fact, he's going to have a ring put on his finger.

It's a sort of ritual in which the king is marrying the kingdom.

Oh my God, so not only are we swearing allegiance,

we're actually getting married to the guy.

This is getting more and more baffling.

Yeah, and you'll see he keeps saying things like, I do, I will.

He keeps being asked these questions about whether he's going to fulfil his obligations towards the king.

Well, of course, he said that before, didn't he?

Are we allowed to talk about the past in his life that have not been perfect?

Yeah, I think we definitely can.

At the same time, I think I'm obviously a huge admirer.

I'm not just because I am a monarchist, but because I've seen him in Afghanistan,

in Cumbria, in meetings on the environment where he is just exceptional.

I'm going to give him the environment. I'm going to give him that.

Yeah, I think one of the things that I have always been struck by is,

and I remember in Afghanistan when individual Afghans working with his charities were

bereaved on security issues, he would write handwritten letters to almost all of them.

And again, on foreign trips, I've seen him often abroad doing 12 events, jet lagged,

stopping to listen to everybody.

I mean, he's got a pretty formidable sense of duty.

I'm a monarch.

Talking of your acquaintance with him,

I was flicking through the Financial Times at the weekend,

and there was a huge piece on Prince Charles' fashion choices.

And one of the pictures was him coming out of a red brick building.

And who should that be in the background?

But a young Rory Stewart.

So what was going on? Were you helping him pick that coat?

I think this was a visit to Dartmoor Prison.

So when I was prison's minister, he came around Dartmoor Prison.

He's very interested in prisons as well.

I mean, I think you'd like him very much.

I mean, he loves music. He paints very well.

It's a real joy in landscape.

I think you'd share his Tree of the Day enthusiasm.

Listen, I think there's a lot of good to be said for him.

And I do think he was ahead of his time on the environment.

I do think he's somebody like his mother who's committed to doing good.

I hope he keeps up some of the causes that he's believed in,

even though it's become more difficult.

I just think that this point about us all having to feel the same thing.

So I watched on Sunday night, I watched the BBC documentary,

The Making of a Monarch.

And listen, it was really interesting.

There was some amazing old footage,

which most of us I think had probably not seen that much of before.

And I thought he came across very, very well.

But it was essentially a one hour, if he was a politician,

party political broadcast.

For example, obviously you can't do an hour documentary

without mentioning Princess Diana.

But she sort of came and went in a flash.

And there was no sense of it.

He talked about his experience at Gordonston School,

which everything I've ever heard and read tells me he absolutely loathed.

And yet that too came and went in a flash with him,

sort of saying, you know, it was very character building

and it was very this and that and the other.

So look, you and I would agree that politicians

and even though a lot of them deserve a lot of approbrium,

they have a very difficult media landscape.

So do sports people.

The royal family are given this kind of at that level,

at his level, not like Harry and Meghan,

but Charles is given this almost like a free pass.

And I just think people resent it.

Not when he was Prince of Wales, was he?

I mean, of course, the awful thing is they have this schizophrenic thing

with media where they can be held up in a pedestal

and then they can be in the most sort of torrid phone hacking, grisly.

Oh, for sure.

I'm not saying they've had it easy,

but I am saying that I think that sometimes

that I think we would benefit.

I mean, let's be honest, you won't be able to see it

because you'll be in the nave with your friends.

But with those of us who are watching on television,

you know, we all know it's all going to be of one tone.

I don't mean monotonous boring,

but it's going to be of one tone.

It's all going to be marvelous.

People are going to be loving it.

Everybody's going to be happy.

Everybody's going to look wonderful.

There's no sort of reality.

There's no sort of reality.

Which is you point out that in your wedding and Christmas,

you don't feel very comfortable doing even a wedding in Christmas.

Lovely piece, actually, by Tom Holland,

who is our Rest is History co-podcaster,

which we like to refer people to.

And a couple of random facts about it,

which people like me who are massive history geeks love.

One of them is that the king's champion is turning up.

And the king's champion,

who's a man called Francis Dimoke.

Oh, I thought it was Roy Stewart, by the way.

So that hit their role.

You would have loved this role, actually.

I think you should have bid for it.

Used to be to literally ride in a suit of armor on a horse

into Westminster Hall and throw down a gauntlet.

Love it.

And challenge anyone in the kingdom who wanted to fight.

See, now we're talking.

Now we're talking.

SkySport would love that.

Exactly, exactly.

Totally.

And they've been doing this.

Their direct access is all the way back

to the champions of the Duke of Normandy

nearly a thousand years ago.

But their condition for doing it is they have to hold on

to this single bit of land that they were given

in exchange for doing this back in the early Middle Ages.

That's how the land got given out, isn't it, Roy?

That's why Scotland is owned by a handful of people

and just happened to be good friends with the royals

at one point.

Well, in this case, it's a pretty tiny bit of land

the poor guy's still got.

I mean, a poor guy.

I'm sure he's a very, very happy guy.

But it's a very, very small thing.

I think he's only got the gatehouse left,

but he's clinging on and he remains as the king's champion.

And my second random fact before we leave this

is that they're going to be carrying something called

the Cortana or Sword of Mercy,

which is broken off at the top.

And is first described in Time of King John,

so Magna Carta King John.

And he believed it to be the sword of the Assyrian knight Tristran

and that the top of it got broken off

in the giant Moor Holtz skull.

There we are.

So there's a bit of history.

Roy, I know you're going to be busy on the day,

but I think with the sort of knowledge that you have there,

you should be doing maybe not the BBC,

but ABC in America or something like that.

That's the sort of stuff they're going to do.

Now, finally, Roy, finally,

just as my mother will be listening up in heaven,

and she died nine years ago this week,

but just so that people don't think I'm an absolute,

sort of could never say a good word about these guys,

the new book that you keep kindly plugging for me,

what's it called again, Roy?

It's not called What Can I Do, is it?

It's called But What Can I Do,

but if you go to page 154,

I recall an event that I attended

where the main guest of honor

was the then Duchess of Cornwall.

Camilla spoke of her visit to Auschwitz in 2020,

saying she would never forget a speech

given by Marian Turski, holocaust survivor,

who had talked about the laws discriminating

against Jews in Nazi Germany in the 30s

and the relevance of this to our own time.

He described, says Camilla, how people,

victims, perpetrators and witnesses

can gradually become decentralized

to the exclusions, stigmatization,

alienation of those who previously were friends.

Marianne warned us this can happen again,

but he gave us, too, the answer to preventing it.

You should never, ever be a bystander.

And then she went on to say,

let us not be bystanders to injustice or prejudice.

After all, surely our personal values are measured

by the things we are prepared to ignore.

So, Rory, if Suella Braverman is in the nave with you

at the great event,

if you could kindly take a copy of my book,

give it to her and mark up Camilla's speech,

that would be very, very kind.

Anything to promote your book.

I love that line, though,

never be a bystander, says Camilla.

I like that. I hope that's in the service as well.

Never be a bystander.

Very good.

Well, listen, I was in France last week

and in Paris, I had a very interesting conversation

about European energy.

And in particular, how Europe is going to respond

to the energy transition.

And somebody said, in fact,

actually it's a friend of mine called Ben Juda,

who's a writer and who's got a great book on Europe coming out,

you can almost see country's success

in terms of the particular energy source.

So, coal made Britain, Germany, France in the 19th century.

Oil is obviously making the United States

and the Gulf in this century.

But the real question is going to be the future

of the post-carbon future.

And that is going to be a fight for minerals

because battery technology depends very much

on things like cobalt and lithium,

a lot of which comes out of Africa

and 80% of which is processed in China.

And as part of this story,

Germany is in a very, very serious problem.

And before I turn to you,

because I know you've just been reading

a Der Spiegel article on this,

one statistic before I turn to you.

In 2019, Germany produced 3.5 million automobile units a year

compared to China's 0.5 million, half a million.

Three years later, by 2022,

Germany was producing 2.5 million

and China was producing 2 million.

Between 2019 and 2022,

the closing gap between China and Germany is unbelievable

and so much of Germany's industry depends on chemical processing,

which is to do with energy,

or creating parts for combustion engines

which are exported to places like China,

which aren't going to be needed

if you move to electric cars

that have far fewer moving parts.

Well, your point on minerals is one of the reasons

why China has been so aggressive and active

in what they would define as support for

a lot of countries in Africa,

whereas you and I have mentioned many, many times in recent months.

Britain has withdrawn,

not least through our lack of support

in international aid and development.

The Chinese have very much targeted those mineral resources.

The article you mentioned that I've been reading in Der Spiegel,

the headline is

Der Große der Gefahrzeit Tesla,

the biggest danger, the biggest risk

to the German car industry since Tesla.

And the piece really is about how Volkswagen,

BMW and Mercedes have been really dominant

of all the global brands in the Chinese car market.

Germany has been right up there.

And now we have these firms,

which I must admit,

and as I read this piece I didn't even know about,

BYD, NIO and Geely,

and these are Chinese e-cars,

which the Chinese have got into their own markets,

but now they're actually going to try and get into the European market.

So the question that the article is asking

is what can the Germans learn from the Chinese,

and the answer might be from what you're saying

that maybe they're a bit late to learn some of those lessons,

because the other energy issue that the Germans are having to deal with

is sort of post-Russian dependence

and where they go for their energy of the future.

So yeah, it's interesting that you were hearing that in France.

I noticed you were getting out before the near riots of yesterday.

I was hearing the same thing in Germany.

So it's obviously the Chinese improving their hold

on markets where we thought, not that long ago,

these were going to be huge markets for Europe,

but the rest of our lives, as it were, is changing very, very quickly.

It's terrifying because, of course, energy costs

are going to be vital in any kind of industrial production,

and the fear is that Germany is in real trouble,

that fundamental industries like chemicals, pharmaceuticals,

and the motor industry and the parts for the motor industry

are going to be under real strain over the next 10, 15 years.

Some of the German business people I was meeting in Paris

around table were saying that they've gone from sort of

slightly looking in despair at Britain to fearing

that they're about to become a version of Britain.

They're very, very worried about their 5, 10-year industrial future.

Of course, they are burning a lot of coal.

There was the banning on nuclear.

There's the fact that they're having to import liquefied natural gas,

which is five to seven times more expensive

than if you've got it in pipes on the ground,

which is what you've got in Qatar or the United States.

And it's doubled, the price of it has doubled

since the invasion of Ukraine.

Exactly.

Overall, overall energy price in Europe

have gone up by a third, 35%.

And you have this weird thing which is very common

in the way that we've responded to the climate crisis,

which is we feel very good about ourselves,

not burning carbon, and then we import stuff from China

that's made using carbon burned in China.

But in this case, Europe feels good about itself,

not fracking, and then imports a lot of liquefied natural gas,

which is simply fracked in the United States.

It just seems strange as well that the German government,

with the Greens quite powerful within it,

have made this decision to turn their back

effectively on nuclear and go for more coal.

So the phrase, the geopolitics and net zero,

I think is a really good one for us to look at in a future pod,

because that's the mineral race,

that's Indonesia and Chile restricting exports

of these key minerals.

That's China dominating the trade.

That's the US trying to position itself on things like AI

and synthetic biology.

China positioning itself on manufacturing in Europe

being a bit lost.

I read a very interesting thing,

because I knew you wanted to talk about this,

by the energy saving trust,

and they did a sort of country by country analysis

of what different governments are doing

to try to get people to reduce their energy.

And I don't know if you came across this phrase in Paris,

but their plan is to cut energy use by 10%

in the next two years.

And the strategy is called sobriété energetique,

energetic sobriety.

This is all about going sector by sector

to try to cut down on fossil fuels

and reduce consumption.

And I think they've been studying Tesco.

Is it Tesco that have their thing?

Every little helps.

Their slogan is chaque gest compte,

every gesture counts.

So they're basically saying it's about, you know,

turning off things that don't need to be on

and keeping your lights off

and keeping the heating down.

Spain has brought in some quite interesting

temperature limits.

Croatia is really doing the stuff about,

it's all about information

and making sure people are aware

that how they're consuming, what they're consuming.

And we had this exercise in Britain recently

where we all got the same message.

We all got the same noise on our phone

and the government were testing some kind of

new alert system.

And in California now,

they send out texts

to everyone in California

at certain points.

And the last one read,

extreme heat is currently

straining the state energy grid.

Power interruptions may occur unless you take action.

Please turn off or reduce non-essential power

if your health allows from now till 9pm.

Goodness.

It actually stopped them having blackouts.

It saw a massive

diminution in energy use within the next 30 minutes

following that message.

Oh, it's fantastic.

Yeah, it was good.

So those who were going for all the sort of

conspiracy theories that were doing the rounds

when we all had to do that thing,

I think if it's used for that kind of thing,

I would approve.

Yeah, that's amazing.

I mean, I wonder,

that's an interesting thing from a comms point of view,

whether the effect fades over time.

When you first do it, people respond,

but eventually they get lazier.

Yeah, what all of these show

is that it's about trying to get people to change

their own behavior and not think

that every little thing that you do

doesn't over time have some sort of beneficial effect.

The Netherlands, they've lifted,

like the Germans, they're lifting restrictions

on coal-fired power stations,

but they've also got an energy-saving campaign.

I was very touched by your Dutch friend

saying that my Dutch accent was quite good

when I was talking about bagpipes.

I wanted to judge you on this one.

They've got a thing called

Z-U-G-D-K-L-O-P-O-M,

which means turn the switch,

and it's a specific thing aimed at SMEs

on how you can save energy

and boost sustainability

to try and build up a macro picture.

Beautiful.

Well, I think on that amazing bit of Dutch,

we should go to the break.

Dank of El.

Welkom Terug,

or welcome back to The Rest is Politics

with me, Rory Stewart.

Ik helst Kambel on the Google Translator.

Thank you.

I can't believe you looked up some Dutch

or Google Translate in the break,

but anyway, well done.

Very good.

Listen, one thing that we should be plugging

is I really enjoyed the interview with Tony Blair,

and people who want to pick it up,

it's on our separate channel,

which is our separate podcast channel,

which is called Leading, L-E-A-D-I-N-G,

which you can find in your podcast.

It was very intense because it was forcing Tony Blair

to really focus in on the issue

of the online peace process,

but I thought he had...

It was actually, I thought rather wonderful,

because he was really getting into what it means

to be a politician, how leadership works,

how persuasion works in those contexts,

how you sometimes have to be constructively ambiguous.

Did you enjoy it?

Yeah, well, I said constructively ambiguous.

He said tactically cute.

So don't search The Rest is Politics, people.

Search Tony Blair Leading right now,

and it will pop up.

Very good.

So let's talk BBC Chairman.

He's finally gone, Mr Richard Sharp.

You're too modest, Alistair, to mention,

but it was one of the things that you predicted

in the middle of the Gary Lineker situation

that Richard Sharp was going to have to go.

But what's brought him down in the end

is this extraordinary conflict of interest

in the heart of it, probably the most shocking thing,

which is that our Prime Minister then, Boris Johnson,

while Prime Minister got himself

into some extraordinary financial trouble,

so much so that he somehow convinced

the Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case,

to get involved.

And Richard Sharp, who became the Chairman of the BBC,

was involved in introducing him

to somebody who lent him £800,000,

and this was not declared.

Did there somebody who was also weirdly

a distant relative of Johnson,

did he lend him the money or guarantor?

Was he the guarantor?

We still don't know where the money came from.

His name was Sam Blythe,

but he didn't lend the money, I don't think.

So, Simon Case said it was OK to take the money

because it was coming from a relative,

but the point of the whole story

is that Boris Johnson can't have known

this relative very well if he had to be introduced

to this person via Richard Sharp.

It appears as though this person's a semi-stranger

who needed to be introduced to him by Richard Sharp.

I mean, I can remember.

Certainly, as it were, a lowly special advisor

to the then Prime Minister.

But I can remember having the security people

warning us of the dangers of blackmail

and ending up owing.

One of the things they asked you when you're vetted

is whether you're in debt to anybody

because that alone can produce a conflict of interest.

It's absolutely unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable.

So, Boris Johnson made Richard Sharp,

one of the BBC after Richard Sharp had offered

to help him out of his financial difficulties.

I mean, there couldn't be a clearer conflict of interest.

But somewhere in the heart of this also

is something that we should talk about again,

which is Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary,

who I believe you met recently, Alistair,

but it's very, very odd.

I was obviously singing the praises of people

like Burke Trend and even Richard Wilson,

who I think was a thorn in the side

of you and your friend Jonathan Powell.

But boy would Richard Wilson not,

I think, have gone along with this kind of stuff.

And I think one of the problems

without sounding agist is that

Simon Case became Permanent Secretary

when he was barely 40 years old.

He'd only been in the civil service for 12 years.

Whereas traditionally, Cabinet Secretaries

were people who had been in the civil service

for over 30 years, had run big government departments

and would have had the full confidence

and he was brought in at a time when Boris Johnson

and Dominic Cummings were firing

a lot of the other senior Permanent Secretaries

across the system, Foreign Office,

Ministry of Justice, et cetera.

And I'm afraid that's at the heart of this problem

that we haven't had a Cabinet Secretary

standing up to Permanences

in the way that they ought to.

No, and also there's these stories doing the rounds

at the moment that Simon Case is at the heart

of trying to stop Sue Gray

do the job that she's been asked to do

for Keir Starmer as Chief of Staff.

And it is interesting how often

his name pops up in these situations.

But the real villains that I think you've named them

is what was happening under Johnson and Cummings.

And this book by Anthony Seldon,

which George Hospital's recommendation

I finally got around to taking a look at it,

it is absolutely incredible.

I mean, it's worse than you and I thought.

If his account is accurate,

it's worse than you and I thought.

The levels of incompetence and chaos

and the extent to which Cummings actually thought

he, not Johnson, was the Prime Minister.

Well, also, sorry, just on that,

I'm very, very struck when I see you with Tony Blair

or Jonathan Powell, how much

you likes and respected each other,

whereas Dominic Cummings from the beginning

despised Boris Johnson.

He was trying to run the country

while making no secret of the fact

that he had utter contempt for his own boss.

Yeah, which you can't function like that.

And also that's completely,

it's completely sort of discombobulates

the entire structure on which government is meant to run.

And of course, the Cabinet Secretary is the most

senior civil servant, is meant

to be the person who's ensuring

that there is good order within the government

machine, that other departments are brought

in at the right time, but also does

have the role of speaking truth to power.

And I think there comes a point

with somebody like Simon Case, where

if you are working alongside somebody like

Johnson and Cummings, I think there does come

a point where you say, look, I cannot on the one hand

be expected to operate by standards

that are expected of senior civil servants

and on the other, go along

with some of the nonsense that I'm seeing.

And this was nonsense. The idea that this was not

that this loan should not have been

disclosed is absolute total

nonsense. We've also been talking a little bit

about how much our system

relies on a strong civil service

and we talked about it a little bit with

Dominic Raab and bullying in civil service.

But Simon Case's

career, which I've been looking at,

is also an example of another problem that's happening

to our government. So July

2014 to July

2016, he goes through

five jobs in four years. He was

nine months as executive director of the

improvement group in the cabinet office,

nine months as a director at GCHQ,

15 months as a private secretary

number 10, nine months as the director general

for the EU, four months

as the director general for Northern Ireland before

he was moved to be private secretary to Prince William.

Now, how is government supposed to

function if people at a director general

level, which remind people is right at the

very, very top of the civil service? They're only in these roles

for nine months or four months?

Well, especially if ministers are sort of changing

every, in the case of

the trust Johnson here, every

three and a half minutes. I think we shouldn't,

given that we are goal-hunger podcasts, which

you've been thrilled as I was

to see we're at one stage goal-hunger, one, two,

three in the charts this week, but we shouldn't

neglect or forget

the central role that the GAFA, Gary

Lineker played in these whole proceedings,

still playing it, I see, the daily

express front page, the day

after Richard Sharp's

resignation, and this is the

paper, remember, that campaigns relentlessly

against woke and for free

speech, front page headline

BBC must act

to silence Lineker.

And this was 30p Lee

Anderson saying that Lineker

saying, making

exact, virtually word for word, by the way,

what David Dimbleby said, namely,

that no serving

government should choose the BBC

chairman of the day, which

you and I also agree with, and that

somehow is elevated

into a front page story. So I think we should

actually just, for a moment, remember

Gary's heroic role

in bringing order and sense

to the top of the BBC for a while. And also

to remind people that the reason why

the chairman of the BBC and the director

of the BBC shouldn't be appointed

by the government is that

no government can really

be trusted. So the conservators brought

in Richard Sharp, but

you, when you were in power,

brought in Greg Dyke as director general

who had donated money to

Labour, you brought in Gavin Davis

as the chairman of the BBC who was a Labour donor

and his wife was the private secretary to Gordon Brown.

I don't think we could bring in the director general,

but the government does appoint the chairman.

I should point out in my own defence,

Rory, that that story

ended with, how shall we say,

somewhat bad blood between all

of us, particularly between them and me,

over the

differences of opinion over Mr Andrew Gilligan,

special adviser to Boris Johnson.

Look, I think it's absurd.

I think it's absolutely absurd. And the other thing I'd say

is we need a strong

BBC that is

prepared to speak truth to power. We need it more than ever.

You know, you've got these

GBBs people and the talk TV

people and they're, you know, they're essentially

just sort of mini-Fox news

that are being funded by, you know, very,

very, very wealthy people who don't care

whether they lose loads of money. And the BBC,

we should support the BBC. And a shout out,

by the way, for local BBC

radio and television, which

is being shredded at the moment,

shredded. I had

a message from somebody who works

for the BBC up in Humberside

who was saying that, you know, they're

losing jobs, they're losing,

they can't cover the area properly.

And this does have long-term implications

for the future of democracy.

Well, it's awful for local democracy, isn't it?

Because it means that you can't hold, you don't

know enough about your local representatives.

You can't hold them accountable for what's happening

locally. BBC Cumbria has been

shredded to pieces. The incredibly

important and important for local identity, too.

Just to give a positive shout out

to the BBC, you and I, both big supporters

of the World Service, which I often listen to in my

car. Yeah, this is why you listen to the World Service, where we're

in Britain. I said, because I'm in Britain, I'm listening

to the World Service. Emergency radio

service for Sudan is being

launched on BBC News Arabic

by the World Service. So that's proper public

service broadcasting, in my view. That is, but

unfortunately, they're about to end their

Arabic language production. Exactly.

Along with Chinese and Hindi. Exactly.

So, BBC,

we both support it. It's gone through a very bad

phase. Richard Sharp should never have been there,

good that he's gone, and now they need

to get somebody in. Who would you have as BBC

Chairman Roy? Please don't say me, because it's not

going to happen. Sorry, it's going to say you or my me.

I think one

really good thing would be for it not to be a

politician. I mean, obviously, that's slightly

against my own interests, because I'm an XMP,

but I think I don't see

why so many of these jobs are going to people

who've been members of parliament. One of the names,

I can't remember, the name that is said to be

Rishi Sunak's favourite is yet another

one from the kind of world of finance and hedge

fundery. I mean, it's got to be somebody

who understands business and broadcasting,

and it's got to be somebody

who can stand up to pressure. Who was

the best one you thought during your time

that you remember? Who was a good chairman

that you really thought was doing their job well?

I thought Chris Patton was quite good,

but he was a politician.

How about Michael Grade?

My opinions of people tend

to be, because I'm very tribal,

they tend to be coloured by people's position on

Brexit. I never

use Dyson hand dryers, and I will never

go in a Weatherspoons. I mean, there are many

reasons I won't go to Weatherspoons, partly the fact

that I haven't had a pint of beer since 1986,

but

no, I'm not buying the

love for Michael Grade. Very good.

Okay, well, now the next thing you wanted

to talk about was something called

oracy, where initially I thought

this is some misspelling. Do you mind

telling us what on earth oracy is?

It's like moracy, right? It's a pop

group. Do you not know what oracy is?

No, no, it's terrible. Well, oracy,

the reason I wanted to talk about this is because

I spoke at a conference

last week

organised by a group,

a charity, an education charity

called Voice 21.

And Voice 21 was founded

by my former number 10

and labour colleague Peter Hyman, who left politics

to go and become a head teacher

and was a very good head teacher,

but has now gone back into politics

and he's now working for Kerstarma.

But Voice 21

is about trying to

put oracy, which is about

if you like, how we teach

listening and speaking

on the same

par as literacy and numeracy.

And there's a guy who

did the main presentation, a guy called

Professor Neil Mercer,

who just gave a brilliant

explanation as to why in the

modern age in particular we have to be able

to teach our children to communicate

clearly and properly.

And it's interesting, he's actually a Cumbrian

roaring. He talked about how

there's no such thing, we shouldn't

get obsessed with sort of standardised English

because when he's in Cumbria

he admits he speaks differently

to when he's in Cambridge.

He speaks differently when he's doing a presentation

to a room full of teachers

as we were doing that day, to when he might

be doing the same presentation to

children or to people in a different part of the country.

And what these guys do,

the charity, what they do is they teach

teachers how

to educate children in the art of

speaking and listening. And it's also about

how you make decisions. You'll be pleased to know

that the room was full of people

who listened to our podcast and loved this

idea of disagreeing agreeably.

Somewhere in the hearts of this,

I'm a little plug for my free part

BBC

Radio 4 series which was on Public

Speaking and Reshwick and its use.

And I was very struck

particularly with an interview with

two young men from

St Francis Xavier School in Liverpool,

State School in Liverpool

who felt that their lives had been turned

around by entering

a debating competition Public Speaking

and what they felt about it

was it wasn't just about the confidence

it was also about empathy

that learning

to do these debates forces you

to understand the other person's position

and forces you to

enter their mindset in order to try to persuade them.

Well at the start of this presentation

and I write a whole chapter in my new

book about the importance of this public speaking

and it's not public speaking as in

standing up and making speeches.

It's public speaking as in

when you're dealing with bureaucracy

when you're trying to get something done over the phone

how do you deal with people when you open a bank account

anyway Neil Mercer when he started

he said hands up this is a room full of

several hundred teachers

he said hands up if you were

taught how to speak

at school and about

I don't know 15 to 20 hands went up

he said put your hands down

if you went to

private school

and I think they were left with two hands in the air

so the private schools do teach

when you were eating you were taught

how to debate how to speak

I remember Charles Kennedy used to say that one of the

things that made him a politician he went to

a state school in in Lekaba

in the Highlands but they had

school debating and he was a very good

debater and that's what made him want to go to university

and he was a great debater there and that's how he

became a politician and

I think we just need this more than ever

and I hope that with Peter Hyman now

inside Keir Starmer's office

I think Oresie the idea

that we teach in the modern age

children how to communicate and by the way

it doesn't mean they all have to sound like

you know Queens English as it used to be

called accents are incredibly important

people being you know

proud of where they come from is not inconsistent

and even the thing about you know

Ofsted for example there was a lot of

kind of criticism of Ofsted

at this conference because people were saying

Ofsted go into schools

where you know children

because of where they're brought up and the

accents of their parents and the way their parents

might be you know we done

rather than we did and all that sort of stuff

that that kind of stuff gets loaded on the

school and the school gets marked down

and and so anyway I just think

it's a really interesting area

Yeah exactly well one of the things that I

love about it is that

in the heart of the idea of debate

or argument is the idea of

that you can actually change somebody else's

mind and what I hope

when doing is not just agreeing

or disagreeing gribly but also

the possibility of persuasion because that's

incredibly important in a very polarised

world and I think it's what

Trump stood against. Trump

fundamentally says

my supporters and I have this fixed world view

and nobody is going to

change it and I'm not going to change anybody else's mind either

And if you don't have my view you're just wrong

Exactly and there's this lovely book

by a Yale professor called Brian Gaston

which is basically

in defence of persuasion he argues

that politics goes wrong

when you give up on the idea of being able

to persuade someone because then you give up on the idea of compromise

you give up on the idea of shared truth

you give up on the kind of humility which

is embedded in politics.

By the way Orocy

is now part

of the curriculum

in Scotland and Wales. Very good

So Michael Gove when he

was pressed on this apparently used to say look we can't

just have our kids sitting around chatting

There's Michael Gove

who spends his entire life sitting around chatting

with his Tory friends. And chats very well

He's a very good chatter

Yeah but so there we go

there's one for Labour

I hope Orocy. Let's make

Orocy a word that

I mean I'm amazed that even you didn't know what it was

Roy that really is. That's shocking

Isn't it? Shocking. Well on that

I think we'll bring it to an end

with a pin of praise to Orocy

Thank you very much

Thank you

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.