The King schools Burnham | with Robert Tombs

0:00This podcast is sponsored by Raymond James. In an increasingly standardised wealth management industry, Raymond James' high-touch, service-first way of working sets it apart. It puts people at the heart of everything it does. Advice that's as unique as you. That's the power of personal. Please remember, investing involves risk and you may get back less than you invested.

0:30Amazon, TikTok shop, and over 200 more integrations with one platform that does it all. You can manage orders, sync inventory, track returns, all automatically. Everything your operation needs, all in one place. Right now, qualified shippers get a real dedicated person to get you set up and switched over for free. So when peak season hits, you're ready to go. Switch today at ShipStation.com, code audio.

0:59Hello and welcome to Coffeehouse Shots. I'm James Heal and I'm joined today by Professor Robert Toombs, who is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Cambridge, the author of Our Island Story, which is coming out shortly, and most importantly of all, a regular contributor to The Spectator in print and online. Now, Robert, the reason why we wanted to get you on this week is to talk about the Commonwealth Summit and Andy Burnham's article for The Guardian in which he talks about the need to have a conversation about past crimes committed by Britain, the Empire, and the question of whether reparations should now be reopened.

1:29I just wanted to get your take on what the Prime Minister has said, which seems to be a slight evolution of the long-standing government position that we weren't going to apologise for the crimes of our forefathers. Well, I think this is what you call a Burnhamism, isn't it? It's a new concept. It means something that you say which you said you wouldn't say, but that you say in terms that are so obfuscated that it may not mean anything at all. So he talks about being open to doing something or listening to something, which doesn't mean he'd actually do anything about it, but it means that he's sending a signal to, well, parts of the Labour Party, some Commonwealth governments, which he seems to think will have his desired effect of keeping his troops happy and probably calming things down.

2:15But it seems to me this is a really rather reckless way of behaving. The reason I say it's reckless is because previous prime ministers have been very careful to choose their words carefully, because it's obvious that what's going on here is that a number of governments are asking for large sums of money from us, and they're trying to extract a certain form of words which will give them some sort of legal basis at some sort of UN tribunal, perhaps, to push us into paying a lot of money. So if you're a sensible prime minister, you would not fall into this trap. It seems that Burnham has walked into it, whether without thinking or because he has some sort of tactical advantage in mind.

2:57So he has opened now for the first time, I think, the possibility that we shall apologise in some way and lay ourselves open in some way for paying some sort of reparations of an unspecified kind at an unspecified time, typical Burnhamism, but which it seems to me likely to keep the whole thing going forever, because now he's expressed some sort of concession, a sort of appeasement, if you like. It's bound to encourage, I would have thought, those who are pressing for reparations to keep on pressing and think that, well, they've got a government that is, there's after all, conceded the principle, all they have to do is keep on pushing and they'll get more and more concessions as time goes on.

3:42And when it comes to the recent debate around operations, a lot of it seems to have been in the West out of the legacy of the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, the death of George Floyd. I wonder how longstanding are these kind of demands and calls? Or is it a more recent phenomenon which governments in, say, the Caribbean have discovered as a way of courting domestic political popularity? Well, William Pitt the Younger did make a very full apology for our role in the slave trade in 1792, in which he talked about our long and cruel injustice for which we should atone. So I mean, I think that there's nothing new about people feeling that slavery was an awful thing.

4:24Okay, for a long time, people thought there's nothing wrong with slavery. And then they decided that after all, it was a dreadful thing to have done and that we were involved in it and we should be sorry about it and we should do something to repair the damage. So that's been around now for a couple of centuries. And of course, the thing that was done about it was to work for many decades to try to stop slave trading and to stop slavery. That was our atonement, as Pitt would have seen it. And I think for a long time, that was kind of, I thought that was conceded. It was pretty well known that Britain had been involved in the slave trade, but had also been the leading abolitionist country, and that there's two things to sort of balance each other out.

5:06I think you're probably right that it's the influence of American political culture, and its hypersensitivity to anything that seems to be to do with race, which in the American case is very understandable, perhaps not so much in ours, that has brought this forward. And well, I suppose also the common sense view is, as Kemi Badenoch said the other day, we're all looking for money. We're all facing the problems of low growth and debt. And therefore, if this is a way of getting some money, you'd be pretty stupid to not to try and take it. And if you can see a government and a whole political class, really, that seems to be pretty soft on this kind of thing, then why would you not think you'd try it on?

5:52And I wonder how much this is simply a debate around reparations by another name. I mean, for decades, we've had international development, which has basically helped curry favour between the former colonies and the colonisers. You could see it like that. And then more recently, we've had the discussion around debt restructuring. Andy Burnham, it's been reported, is keen to get Gordon Brown involved in some of that conversations around debt restructuring now. And also The Telegraph reported that he's going to give 40 million to some of these countries in terms of aid with climate change and green schemes.

6:27I mean, how much do you see this as a distinction, Robert? Is this a matter of proper principle here about sort of you did this wrong 200 years ago, therefore you get it? Or is this a more question about modern diplomacy? And the simple fact is that poor nations will always try and leverage whatever they can to get benefits from bigger nations. Whichever it is, you would be well advised to keep these things strictly separate. You could say there is a discussion about reparations and we don't believe that we are liable to pay any sort of reparations. And you could talk about why. That's one argument.

7:02The other question is to say we do give aid to countries, quite a lot of countries, especially countries that have a historical association with us. And this has not been seen and has never been seen, I think, as a reparation. It's been seen as a recognition of a close relationship in the past and all that sort of thing. And also for countries which need money and which are fairly close to us, we have whenever we could have been willing to help. But it seems to me crazy to confuse these two things and say, oh, yes, we do pay aid. Let's say it's something to do with reparations. Well, that seems to me to be pouring petrol on the flames, because once you've started saying, oh, well, you know, here's 40 million.

7:49Will that be enough? Of course, the answer would be, no, it's nowhere near enough. We want lots and lots more than that. And you have accepted. You've said that this is this is reparations. We've got it. We can make a whole case for saying you owe us 16 trillion dollars or whatever the figure is that they came up with. And if you think you're going to get away with 40 million, you've got another thing coming. So I just think, I mean, I don't know why Burnham did this, but it does seem to me to be a pretty stupid, well, I should not say rude things about the prime minister. But I mean, it seems to me to be a rather difficult to understand why you would gratuitously want to confuse aid with reparations when this was never done in the past.

8:30And indeed, previous prime ministers, as far as I'm aware, have always kept these things entirely separate. it. There's two other elements I want to discuss with you, Robert. First of all, there's the question, of course, is that, yes, Andy Burnham is the head of government, but he's not the head of state. And there's been some suggestions that actually, it's rather upstage the king, his remarks, and that King Charles has now had to face questions about this. King, of course, not being just head of state of this country, the United Kingdom, but also the head of the Commonwealth as well. Yes. Well, yes.

8:59I mean, we're told that the Brackenham Palace and 10 Downing Street perfectly happy about all this, but I would be rather surprised if that were true. If I, one of the king's advisors, I think I'd have been very annoyed by this. As you say, the king's role is a delicate one, because as you say, he's king of more than one kingdom. And therefore, for the prime minister of Great Britain, or indeed any of the heads of government of his various realms, to start at a very sensitive moment, intervening in the discussion, raising new issues at the last minute just seems to me to be completely insensitive.

9:38And I would have thought, as I say, potentially rather damaging. I thought the king actually got got round the whole thing extremely well. I'm sure you watched his speech too. We cannot change the actions of those who came before us. We can, however, learn from the past. The transatlantic trade and enslaved persons still cast a shadow over these islands and other members of our Commonwealth. That shameful chapter of history is one that fills my heart with horror and my soul with the most profound personal sorrow. I thought it was a very good speech, and I thought he clearly did make no reference, he made no reference at all to the idea of reparations, which I thought was absolutely right.

10:26He expressed his personal feelings of sorrow, which I thought was absolutely right. And he also referred to the role of the Royal Navy in fighting against the slave trade. I don't know if that's new, but I wasn't, I was hoping he might say something like that, but I wasn't at all sure that he would. And I rather suspect that was his idea, not the government's idea. And I think it was very, very good that he should say it, partly because it's true, of course, and it does remind us all, if we needed reminding, that if Britain was a shameful participant in the slave trade, it was also the very opposite in its long struggle against slavery, at considerable cost in treasure and in lives.

11:14I think you're totally right about that. I think the King actually, funnily enough, I should say as a diversion, that we've got our Spectator Parliamentarian Awards in a few weeks' time. And we did consider whether we should give the King speech of the year, partly as a reflection of the poor oratory of our parliamentarians, sadly. But second of all, just because he gave that terrific speech, giving the bell of HMS Warrior to Donald Trump on the state visit. And he really is, in his role, currently proving to be one of the diplomats of our time. The second thing I wanted to ask Robert as well was about the future of the Commonwealth.

11:43Now, you've written an excellent book on the history of the English-speaking peoples. And I just wonder, I look around and I see, for instance, David Frost, Lord Frost this week in the upper house, put down amendments suggesting he wants to end Commonwealth voting. You see what's coming out of Chogun, the Commonwealth Head of Government meeting, where you've got people questioning, is it simply a shakedown from some of the Caribbean nations? And you look at the younger generations that are coming through who maybe don't remember the imperial ties, who don't have a romantic attraction. what do you make of the Commonwealth and its potential future and the UK's role in all of that?

12:17Well I'm afraid like a lot of people I feel very uncertain. On one hand I think that the Commonwealth would potentially be something of great importance. I was a French historian for most of my career so I know about France. The French have worked very hard on trying to build up their version of the Commonwealth, which is called la francophonie. And they see it as a huge diplomatic advantage. I mean, we for a very long time, when I say we, I mean, I think that the political establishment regarded the Commonwealth as something that the Queen was interested in, but that it wasn't serious politics.

12:56Because after all, we were now European, and all this post-imperial stuff was just a waste of time and a bit embarrassing. As I say, something that the French, not a mistake the French would ever have made. So potentially, I think the Commonwealth is something that we should use as, especially in the world as it now is, something that could stand up to, let's say, the vagaries of Trumpism, and also to the sinister manoeuvrings of the Russians and the Chinese. Okay, there are limits to what we can do, but it is in our interest to try to do something and to use the commonwealth when we can as a as a buttress against things that are damaging to us and to and to to other countries now on the other hand you could say well yeah but if it's only going to be every time there's a meeting it's just going to be a way of demanding money from britain then as lord frost and as as kemi badenock have said maybe it's time to think about whether something different is is required and in that case, you might say, well, parts of the Commonwealth, what about, you know, the sort of association of the willing, rather than of the begging, would be something that might be of interest to us.

14:11But I think in that case, you need to have some sort of plan. As it is, it seems to sort of coast on from year to year, because it's, you know, we're here, because we're here, because we're here, because we're here. If you want it to be something, then I think you've really got to decide what your policy is and how you intend to bring it about and what it is you want to do. And I think for a long time, we have not regarded the Commonwealth as very important. Maybe we should, because after all, the two pillars of our foreign policy, insofar as we have one, if we have a coherent foreign policy, from nearly 100 years, pillar one has been the United States.

14:55And then since the 1960s, Pillar 2 has been Europe. Well, although Andy Burnham is keen on cozying up to the EU, I think most of us can see that the EU is not much of a friend and not a very powerful and not a very solid foundation for our position in the world. And America, at least at the moment, is even less reliable. So we need to have some sort of plan and perhaps the Commonwealth ought to be part of that plan, or at least parts of the Commonwealth ought to be part of that plan. Well, difficult questions, as you say, and thank you, Robert, for talking us through them today. And thank you very much for listening at home.

15:47Cash Now, More Later from Opendoor gives you cash up front for your home, plus all the profit later. That's no chaos now, no cash left behind later. Skip the showings now, pocket extra profit later. This is so simple now. This is so awesome later. Or sell fast now and pop the champagne later. Cash now, more later. Now available nationwide. Start your offer at opendoor.com slash ACAST. Profits calculated after fees and costs, eligibility and offer price may vary.