#329. Special Forces Veteran, Armed Forces Minister & Politician - Alistair Carns

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1:54and send a missile to the UK. He couldn't do that because in return he'd receive the same. And so you end up with this thing called mutually assured destruction. But if you say he's reckless... If he tests NATO and NATO responds wholeheartedly... They're finished. How many years did you spend in the military in total? 24. Five tours of Afghanistan. It's the best thing I've ever done and I'd do it again in half a week. How many times have you been close to death, do you think? I don't know more times than I can remember. I've been in mortar strikes, under artillery fire. Guy to my left got killed.

2:24Guy to my right got his arm blown off. Here's the reality. Someone out there is training to kill me. Were you married and had kids? Yeah. Knowing that when you say goodbye, you may never see them again? Yeah. No one should ever have to do what the military has to do. How many friends have you lost? We lost quite a few, yeah. Lost a lot of people under my command as well. Yeah. Welcome to the Eventful Lives podcast. I'm your host Dodge and I'm the founder of Bournemouth 7s, the world's largest sport and music festival. On this podcast I speak to proper characters who have all lived eventful lives.

3:00Do us a favour and hit that follow button and be sure to check us out on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at Dodge Woodall. We've now had over 100 million views. Al, welcome to the show. Delighted to be here Dodge, appreciate it. Yeah mate, I'm really looking forward to this one. Let's roll all the way back. What's the most brutal country you've fought in? So I think Afghanistan. Personally, up front and personal, definitely Afghanistan. There's probably too many stories to talk through. Imagine middle of the night, pitch dark, no moon, mountains that are towering either side of you, flying up a canyon in a CH-47, which is a heavy lift helicopter, four of them flying in formation low level so you don't get shot down as you come in getting close to target someone shouts two minutes so everyone locks and loads gets down in one knee gets ready and the pilot shouts one minute all the gunners on the mini guns are getting ready and as you come in to land the ac-130 gunship which is a aircraft that sits about 10 ,000 feet with an artillery piece in it starts opening up on targets.

4:19Apache gun ships that are ahead of you start opening up. So it's now like Star Wars. It's bullets going everywhere. And then all of the four, because we're an American CH-47, four mini guns on each CH-47. And those four of them all open up as well. Just imagine that. Oh, God. And it is like a mix between Dambusters and Star Wars. And then the guy at the back kicks the fast ropes out and you get onto the fast rope and you slide down the ropes onto the side of a mountain face that's 60 degrees angle and you know you've got to fight up that hill to get into the enemy positions to capture your target and it is carnage.

4:57Alistair Carns: My God. But you know the best thing about any of that environment is the guy to your left and right are the best in the world. Yeah. And the camaraderie, the teamwork, the leadership is second to none. And yes, you're full of adrenaline, but it's the best thing I've ever done. And I'd do it again in my heartbeat.

5:23Alistair Carns: Carnage. Takes a toll after a while. And it's physically hard work because you're at altitude. You're in really rugged terrain. And your enemy is a pretty determined fundamentalist who's probably going to die before he gives up. Yeah, every day. Did you get a massive buzz every time you went on a mission? Yeah, to start with, huge buzz, and then you get desensitized to it. It becomes like getting up and doing a nine-to-five job. And only when it goes to the extremes, where you have casualties or killed in action, does it sort of drive that adrenaline again? And I always say a combat veteran is three to one.

6:16Alistair Carns: An individual who's been there and seen it and done it in different ways will be far cooler and more calculated and balanced in their decision-making in combat because they've lived and breathed it. And then before you experience that, it's your final race to run when you're in the military. How would you cope under the pressures of life or death moments? And no one will ever know that in training. You'll only ever know that on operations.

6:45Alistair Carns: And everybody remembers the first firefight they were in, the first gun battle they were in. Everyone remembers the first dead body you saw. and everybody usually remembers the moments where you come closest to death and it makes you feel even more alive and appreciate how happy you have. How many times have you been close to death, do you think?

7:13I don't know more times than I can remember. I've been such close cause.

7:17Alistair Carns: I got shot in the webbing. Guy to my left got killed. Guy to my right got his arm blown off. I've been in mortar strikes under artillery fire I've had a suicide bomber go off close to me I've been in a helicopter that had pretty much crash landed it got written off afterwards yeah more than I can imagine I've been in pretty close calls with the enemy and I mean close quarters with the enemy I don't glorify any of that. I don't think anyone should ever have to do that. But what I would say, the British military and the elements of the British military I was in are the very best at it. And you've got to remember, I always say this, I was utterly dedicated in the military.

8:08Alistair Carns: Because I used to always live by the ethos that someone out there is training to kill me. Like someone right now is out there in a training camp, in a terrorist training camp, in another hostile All Nations training facility and they're training for one purpose. And that is to kill me. And so when you're in this race, who's better? So when you meet face to face, you're going to win. And that's quite a sobering thought. You know, when you're in the gym and you're like, I'm just going to take it easy today. There's someone else in another gym somewhere else. Who's in Ardo. Who's in Ardo. You may meet face to face at some point.

8:43And so I used to always use that to keep me going. How many tours have you been on in total? all all up uh so i did five tours of afghanistan five of afghan yeah five yeah i kept going i kept volunteer to go back well yeah did you say the word volunteer yeah i i um i did one with the marine corps and i did four uh our marines and i did one four with our more specialist units and um so the specialist units are the special forces specialist units yeah okay and um and I got asked to stay on. I did six months, I got asked to stay on for another six. So I volunteered to stay another six. And then I did another two tours on top of that year, so four in total, all around Afghanistan.

9:32So I did five tours. I did two tours when I was a young Marine of the Arabian Gulf.

9:36Alistair Carns: So catching oil smugglers come out of Iraq. They were smuggling oil out and using it to pay either for weapons or for illicit materials. so we had to sneak up on the ships in the middle of the night and use a caving ladder and then climb up secretly and then seize the bridge of the ship before they could lock it down and sail the boat into an area where the United Nations would then hold them and then sell them off so that was something else from my first tour I did a tour in Northern Ireland after the troubles what year was that? what year was your first tour? 2000 2000, okay And then you came back and then went to Ireland?

10:17Alistair Carns: Yeah. Okay. Well, I joined as a young Marine. I did four years as a Marine, so the lowest rank. Yeah. And then I went back through training again to become an officer. And then I went to Northern Ireland as a platoon commander, troop commander. I then did, also I do, so Northern Ireland. And then the next tour I went on was Afghanistan. and then from then on sort of 2006 my first afghan tour just kept going back on deployments usually short short periods of time apart from the afghan ones that sort of broke it up yeah so if we rolled a little bit further back here what was your upbringing like and how did you what made you want to get into into the military and then work your way up to be probably one of the most decorated in our in my lifetime that i've seen yeah so i am i mean i was brought up in Aberdeen.

11:10Alistair Carns: So my mom and my dad worked in oil industry. And then he left my mom, I want to say when I was seven or eight. So mom was on her own for a bit. We moved house. Mom was on her own for a while. And then my stepdad came on the scene. So my dad pretty much got up and left. I mean, good guy, but he moved to Canada. So it was very little engagement with them. And then oil crash happened. I want to say, I can't remember the exact dates because I was me, I, to a grasshopper. But when the oil crash happened, we then moved houses. My stepdad was out of work for a couple of years. And then eventually over time, he left.

11:53Alistair Carns: And my mom brought up me and my two brothers, two sisters. Okay. So five kids in this really small three bedroom house. And I used to share, it was comedy, I used to share a bedroom with my two brothers, two double bunk beds. And actually, interesting, I went to Hazel Head Primary and Hazel Head Academy, which were like four or five K away from where we lived. And when we moved house, we moved out of the catchment area. But my mom managed to keep me in those schools just for continuity. And she gets a lot of abuse because I'd moved to quite a rough area. But going to sort of Hazel Head, the catchment area was slightly more affluent.

12:35Alistair Carns: and I always had a bit of imposter syndrome. I used to always get caught in mix-ups when I was young because I was from out of area and maybe never had as much money or the right clothes or the right brands on. I used to always get mixed up when I was young. And then... Were you a scrapper as a kid in your teens? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I was always on the edge of, and this is, I mean, this is probably why I joined the military. I grew up in a place called Heathery Fold in Aberdeen, and there were a couple of gangs around there. Give you an example of sort of, you know, who I hung around with my mates.

13:18Alistair Carns: One of my best buddies I'm still friends with now, he's had a real rough ride. We came home from school. I was 14. I went home. He turned up at my door like 20 minutes later. He lived three to four doors down. he was like my mum and dad have gone I was like what are you on about so I said come on now show me so I went back they'd moved out of the house completely apart from his bedroom emptied the house and he says my mum and dad have gone they'd got up and left him it was unbelievable so I had to take him back to my house to my mum be like hey mum his mum and dad have gone and you know that was him into social care imagine that no unbelievable Unbelievable.

14:02Alistair Carns: I'm still, I mean, I'm still mates with him now, but that was him and others just to hang around and there's always, you know, running friction with the other groups left and right. Yeah. You always remember your first sort of scuffle, don't you? I remember, I remember going to get shopping from on and down all through the supermarket and some other kid punched me clean in the face. What, for nothing I raised it? No, why? I don't know if I was from the wrong bit or I don't know what I was doing. It's like, shock me. I was like, holy moly, I've landed. and yeah and so it was quite it was pretty rough upbringing but my mum was always this guiding force yeah I always knew I always knew the role between like really bad and you know pushing boundaries and you know we were always sort of tearing it up and running around and doing what kids get up to which I think was a really good upbringing but I never ever veered into drugs or you know theft or stealing that sort of space I was always left of that.

15:00Alistair Carns: But I was more than happy to stick up for myself. Yeah, yeah. How many years did you spend in the military in total? 24. 24? 24 years. From the age of? 19, 18. Yeah, so 18, joined up just after my 18th birthday, straight out of school. Did you have a vision of what you wanted to do? Were you one of those people who would read all the magazines and books and say, I want to be in the military and I want to be like that person? I want to be in the SBS or SAS or special four. Did you have any vision of that? I was literally like, go in, see what I'm like, and I'll work my way up through there. Yeah.

15:30I think because we lived in a small house and there were five kids, I was always outside. Okay.

15:35Alistair Carns: So I was always out running around playing football or in a golf course at the back of my house, like running around the woods and playing soldiers or whatever. That's sort of where it came from. Okay. Like I want to be outside. I want to be active. Wasn't that interesting in education after school. So I wanted to join. I think I always wanted to join the forces. I didn't really, you don't really know which bit of the forces, do you? I remember coming home one day from school and the Highlanders, which is a regiment, I think it was a Gordon Highlanders, and were sat in my living room with my mum trying to recruit me because they'd been at school and I'd showed an interest.

16:04Alistair Carns: I was like, no, I don't want to join them. I want to join the Marines or the Parachute Regiment. Okay. They were the only two I was obsessed with, like the Green Beret or the Marine Beret. That was it. And yeah, so I just wanted to join from a young age. So when I left, I mean, this is an interesting story. when I left school went straight did my marine course I failed it it was generally one of the most defining moments I went down thought it was a big deal you know I was quite a rough kid anyway thought I was fit enough and I failed it I came back with my tail between my legs gutted it's the only thing I wanted to do and it's a really important lesson you know you've got two choices of a failure you can give up and go the other way or you can use it to shock the system and ensure you will never die again And so I worked so hard, went back down, nailed past it, flying colors.

16:56Alistair Carns: I passed the officer selection and then I failed my admiralty interview board, which is like the psychological and mental bit. But I actually failed it on my colorblind. Where's that? Because I'm colorblind. Okay. And so I came back and the armed forces career office sort of sat me down and said, right, well, listen, you've got the standards to join as an officer. So why don't you join the army? I said, well, when are you going to join the parachute regiment? So I went down to Browning Barracks and I did their potential officer course. I passed that. And I went to do my potential, whatever it is, Sandhurst board.

17:28Alistair Carns: Passed that. The parachute regiment sponsored me to go to Sandhurst. And I went to the medical in Redford Barracks in Edinburgh. And the guy sort of checks you down. And he goes, have you got any previous medical injuries? He's like, yeah, I've got a six-inch titanium pin in my right leg. And I'm like, you can't join until you get the pin out. I was like, are you kidding me? This is like eight months. So I'm colorblind. I've got a pin in my leg, so I can't join. So I went back to a different careers office and just said, I want to join the Marines straight as a Marine. Yeah. Okay. And this old boy from ex-Highlander division sort of sat me down, patted my shoulder, checked my leg, wiggle my head, put the boot up.

18:01Get yourself in. I was like, in you go. Quality. I was like, see you later. I'm in. Quality. So I sneaked in. When you look at the parachute regiment and you look at the Marines, how would you explain the difference? Well, one's part of the Navy, one's part of the Army.

18:15Alistair Carns: Yeah. They're actually very similar. the reality is I got to the end of my Afghan tour in 2006 yeah and I got mentioned in dispatches for that tour and I really really enjoyed it I was part of 148 batteries quite a specialist unit of the Marines and I was a fire support team commander so what did you mean basically calling in artillery mortars so I was a guy in the front like drop over there you know calling in airstrikes and that sort of stuff the delegator yeah it was really I mean it was a high intense job I bet. Give me an example. You said it was a high-intensity job. When were you under the most amount of pressure at one point where you were calling all sorts in?

18:56Where were you? There's probably, well, there's multiple occasions, but do you remember the, have you ever seen? I want to talk about all the occasions as well. Have you ever seen the clip of the guys that jump on the wings of the Apache?

19:08Alistair Carns: Have you seen that? They go, they get, there's a guy, it's called Marine Ford. Unfortunately, he was killed on the edge of Jogroom Fort. And the Apache pilots come back. And the only way to go get him is to put people on the wings of the Apache. Okay. The helicopter. Yeah. Which then lifts up and goes and drops the guys off. And then they bring the body back. That was a massive gun battle. Went on for like a day. And we had B-1 bombers, F-16s, F-18s, Paches, AC-130s, Spectre gunships. And I had to coordinate that whole fires, all the fires. And then you had to make sure that your fires were protected and didn't hit your own people.

19:45Alistair Carns: And then engaged and neutralized the right targets while protecting civilians, while not doing collateral damage, while integrating it with artillery. That was a high intense. And where would you be then? So I was actually just in the command post, just trying where it was all going on. But the coordination of all of that, whilst we also had someone missing that we couldn't find, Marine Ford, and we had to identify him. and then and they got the patch he'd come on the radio and they're like hey we got an idea we can put people on our wings and I'm like that's the most ridiculous idea I've ever heard we can't be clear of that and I was like turned to the boss and went hey you need to authorize this and they authorized it it was a really ballsy move wow and another time you'd be in a trench you know up in Kajaki the whole hell of a firefight going on you know people are shouting you gotta neutralize the position you got an F-16 going hey I've got four enemy combatants coming to your position they're moving closer trying to surround you there's another seven coming, there's 18 coming in from the dam and then you've got to work out which assets you're using to engage and neutralise that target.

20:46Alistair Carns: All while in the middle of a firefight, he'll get yelled at while trying to coordinate the mortar team or the sniper fire or whatever else. A really high intense situation. Just for the listener and watch right there, how do you explain Afghanistan? What does it look like? What does it feel like? What's the intensity? How do you know who's bad and who's not bad? like what you know what goes through your mind and what are you wearing what are you carrying yeah i mean the on that tour in particular you're pretty heavy so imagine body armor eight magazines of ammunition um water food helmet radio um weapon grenades uh all up you're probably in excess of, I want to say, you know, 60, 70 pounds, 80 pounds.

21:37Alistair Carns: Okay. So what's that? 35 kilograms. Bloody hell. And some probably, and you know, a guy I always liked, when there was other guys carrying the electronic countermeasures, it stops mines and booby traps, which is like much heavier. So you've got that. The temperature is anywhere, depending on it's a winter or summer tour, you're between 30 degrees, in some cases, 35 degrees. in winter it can go right down to like depending where you're on a country it can go to minus dust flat and then on the horizon or surrounded there's always big mountains big rocky arid mountains very much like Arizona and then you have these things called compounds which are the buildings that the Afghans live in which are everyone's a castle yeah and some of these walls like 20 foot tall and I know in amongst all of that you've got what I would call the Kerez system which is a well dug directly down and then connected to another well.

22:32Alistair Carns: And these things go for hundreds of miles. So since Alexander the Great there to irrigate the water from the mountains into the desert, they've created this well system. So it's an irrigation system that sits 20 feet below the surface that goes on for hundreds of kilometers. And it's called the Karez system. It's a perfect place to hide in or get ambushed by, depending on how you do it. We found ourselves many a times in those wells, fighting it out with a Taliban. How do you know who Taliban and how do you know who's a farmer or just a normal bod? Are they all dressed the same? Do you know straight away?

23:03Are you guessing? Yeah, it's really difficult.

23:07Alistair Carns: But mostly they have an ammunition chest rig on usually and they'd have a weapon. The men to your left and right are amazing. They always have your back. The whole you know if you get in this shit, if something goes wrong they will help you out. And that's the same on our little Everest jaunt. We knew if something was going to go wrong your guys would sort you out really important it must have been bloody hard when I think about it you don't know who's the baddie and who's not bad and who's good they know straight away that you're bad for them yeah and they would hide it must have felt like a sitting duck at some point but they would hide in amongst civilians as well yeah that's my point they would often hide you said a minute ago oh you see the magazines and they're carrying a shooter they'll have a gun with them whatever but surely if they just covered that up and then covered the gun you still don't know whether he's good or bad and as they learnt tactics As they'd evolved, that's exactly what they started to do at the end of our time.

23:56Alistair Carns: They would ditch their gun really early, ditch their ammo. Why were you fighting in Afghan? From my perspective, it was counterterrorism. So it was the terrorism that projected from Afghanistan that arguably caused September 11th and then emanated across the world. I mean, Al-Qaeda were based in Afghanistan. Okay. And on multiple occasions, we banged into them. um you know it gave me um i'll be really honest you know it was a real sense of pride that some of the operations we were doing were protecting people in both europe and you know the western world because they were planning all sorts of activities from there give me an example when you're on a mission when you've got night goggles on you've got night goggles what are you what are you seeing what are you seeing that other people can't well everything's green okay uh you You have pretty much pure darkness because there's always very little moon that's out.

24:54Alistair Carns: And then when your MVG's on, it's pure green. Oh, sorry, the M? Night vision goggles on, it's pure green. And you can see almost everything. And in later tours, I was a big fan of, you know, stay low, move fast. Stay low, move fast, okay. Like less kit and go as fast as you possibly can. Because if you, one, knew the ground and a lot of map reconnaissance early. So checking the map out, knowing the ground, knowing the nukes and crannies. And if you moved as fast as you could, you could outmaneuver the enemy. And the longer people had done in Afghanistan, the more efficiently they came at that.

25:29Alistair Carns: And then in your teams, you knew the people who could move fast and had that instinct. It was really interesting. And a lot of people pay lips out. It's like, you know, they're sort of awful nails, but that's not true. But you knew. There were a couple of guys in each team who would be able to move fast, help manoeuvre and think two, three steps ahead of you. Yeah, okay. And it was... Did you know, when you look left and look right, do you know what all their strengths are? Yeah, 100%. Okay. Yeah. You know what they're capable of or not capable of. Was there anyone that you... Hmm, no. He's really good, but he's not right up there.

26:07Yeah. Yeah, okay. So it is like a rugby team or a team around you. You know who the strengths are, but he's a fantastic winger. He's a good... That's exactly it. Okay. That's exactly it. Okay.

26:16Alistair Carns: And you'll know, I mean, I've met the most amazing people, the bravest people in my entire life in my military career. Like, these guys are just unbelievable. And some of them, you know, be good breaches, you know, like guys, remember, you've got to go through this door. And you know, on the other side of that door, there's a guy who's going to want to kill you. Yeah. I mean, it's a big shot in the dark with MVGs on. and he's probably hunkered down five metres, five metres away from you with his AK-47 pointing at the door and you've got to go through it. And you know, it's quite a lot of courage to do that.

26:50What do you think people know you as? Know me as? Yeah, like your mates when you'd gone on these tours. What would they know you as? What was your nickname? Well, my second name is Kant and we were, we always, I was a firm believer

27:09Alistair Carns: that there were a lot of regular forces on the ground in Afghanistan. And every time we went out and we were successful in our operation, we saved lives. Yeah. And I'd done one of those tours on the ground, which was kinetic every day. So firefight every day. And we had no support, no Apaches, no gunships, like every day. And so when you're in the more specialist units, you get all the support. We need to keep the tempo up to go out because every time you went out, you saved these guys' lives. So I had a personal violence. So I went out as much as I could and as aggressively as we could because you're saving lives.

27:43Alistair Carns: Yeah, amazing. So my nickname became Carnage. Carnage, yeah. You know that anyway. You walked me into that. That's where it starts and all that. Yeah, Carnage. Quality. Yeah. So your day-to-day, give me an example of a mission. What were you told to do? You're an Afghan. You're saying, right, there's a setup over there. They're all behind enemy walls. I want you to go in and there's three people you need to get. Are you there saying, right, we've got five minutes to do this. We've got six minutes to do this. We planned it all out. What was the process that you go through? So it depends whether it was, I mean, the reality is we, I always say sort of a vision without a plan is a dream and everything is in the planning, not the plan.

28:24Alistair Carns: And so we were - Say it again. Everything is in the planning, not the plan. Because the plan will always change. Yes. Because the enemy has a vote or the environment has a vote or somehow go wrong. But the planning, if you've gone through the planning collectively with your team and everybody knows the phases and the actions on, like what I mean by that is if action on helicopter breaks down, action on helicopter shot down, action on casualty, action on suicide bomber, action on the enemy's not there. Well, okay. If everybody knows that, then it's like instant. So you've got to be thinking five moves ahead the whole time.

28:57Instantaneous.

28:58Alistair Carns: Okay. So the planning, so you go through this really big phase and it's the same with any military operation. you plan this thing till your eyes bleed. And so when you then roll out in the plan and inevitably it changes, we end up with a success. And that would be, some days it would be, sometime it would be weeks in planning. Other days it would be minutes and we'd call it a bonnet brief where you open the map up and go, right, we're rolling. Did you get up every day like, yeah, I'm up for this. Come on, bring it on. Or was there some days you're like, oh man, I'm not feeling this today. Because you're talking about your five tours, Then you're talking about, when we roll back a bit, you're like, oh yeah, I volunteered to go on the next one.

29:35You're just game. You're just game to protect. You're game and proud of your country. 100%. Yeah. I mean, this was, I'd done that first tour. So I knew it was like on the ground. And that first tour was year was? It was 2006, seven. Six, okay. Going out every day. Less IEDs in those days, but every day in a gun bow. Less IEDs. So less booby traps and explosives. That was more in 2003? No, that was later on.

30:00Alistair Carns: I thought I really kicked in. but we had one or two, but it wasn't industrial by the time we were there. But I suppose my point being is I understood in 2006-7, every day your patrols would go out and get into a gun battle, and there was very little support. You might get the old aircraft, American aircraft to come help you out. I had a moment on my – we'd taken quite a lot of casualties in the team, and I got them up to the roof terrace, and we sat down, and I said, all right, guys, we're pushing hard here. We're going out every night. We're taking casualties now. We're probably going to take more casualties.

30:31Alistair Carns: I want you to stay here and have a chat amongst yourself. But my view is every time we go out, we save British American coalition lives. But I want you to have a chat now. And if you want to take your foot off the gas a little bit, you don't want to be, you know, you want time, you want to relieve the pressure, but you need to come and tell me. And before I even got up and left, they went, no, no, no. Okay. We're all in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's keep going. That's a proper leader for you. But that's it. Yeah, I've heard many people want it to, yeah, you were the, yeah. Let's go. and you know I sat down with them all before we left and I said hey here's the reality one of you at least will not be here on the return tour and five of you will be injured or wounded in combat how many men were talking here?

31:1525, 30 Jesus Christ

31:18Alistair Carns: and I just want you to be really clear on that statistically that will be the fact and I was right and I came back we lost people but you know you've got to go So, you know, these people need to know, and they knew anyway, that was experienced dudes, that, you know, you're not all going to come back. But that gauge check in the middle, hey, we're going all in on this. Yeah. Because sometimes when shit goes wrong, things go down badly, people then relieve the gas. Okay. And if you do that, then unfortunately you've then got to ramp it back up. Right, okay. Sometimes you're better just keeping the pressure right down.

31:50Did you feel like you had to accelerate it down the whole time?

31:53Alistair Carns: Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to be unsure when I came back. Like I say, we did everything. Some people say my biggest task in Afghanistan was to bring everybody back alive. However harsh it sounds, your biggest task in Afghanistan was to achieve the mission. And I used to always ask, is it the man of the mission? The mission was a priority. The men were there to achieve the mission. And that's a really important thing in the military. Because if you achieve the mission, you actually save more of the men. Okay. which were the men doing the day-in, day-out, hard, slow, ground-holding battalions everywhere from Kunar in the north, which was like medieval mountains.

32:33Alistair Carns: You know, think sort of Lord of the Rings style, all the way down to the flat deserts of the element. And so if we achieved our mission, we saved, I reckon, hundreds if not thousands of coalition troops. When you're carrying a 15-stone man or whatever opening shoulder, you're running with him on your shoulder you know he's dead but you're also getting shot at as well yeah I had my NVGs blown off by a rocket propelled grenade what's your NVGs? a rocket came past and literally took them off my head luckily it didn't go off but it like whanged and took my NVGs off my night vision closed off it was a big old ding dong that day but you know these are it's deeply sad and the loved ones and the families left behind is a tragedy.

33:25Alistair Carns: But you join the military and you sign the dotted line, you know the risks you're going to take. I used to always say to my family, and in particular my mom, I know the risks if something goes wrong. One, the enemy always has a vote, and they're the ones to blame arguably. But that's the job I've signed up to do. I'll never ask someone to do something you wouldn't be willing to do yourself. and so I always made sure that probably to have annoyance of my blokes that I was always I always test the front so I'd always go to the front every time again just to make sure they knew I was more than happy to take the risk of their Were you married and had kids?

34:00Alistair Carns: Yeah two boys yeah and a daughter So you were going you were going to war knowing that you when you say goodbye you may never see them again Yeah Bloody hell Yeah that's the same with every No I'm sure but just the just reality of just having this conversation is me thinking if I left my boy now I know you're doing a job and you're going to do a job for the country and stuff but that's a serious thought. Yeah. Yeah. And you know there's not enough credit. I would say when you serve your whole family serves. Yes. Just as dramatic for your family that have seen you go knowing that they may never come back.

34:36Alistair Carns: And so I think it's really really important that you you treat the the servicemen the service family as one. You know that's what worked really hard to make sure they have the right benefits as we move forward. What other countries have you fought in? So lots. The other operational tours I've done with Arabian Gulf where it was less fighting, more of a policing mission, but nevertheless probably one of the most exciting and sort of free operations I had, which was taking down these smuggling vessels coming out of Iraq. and they would board these vessels up. So they'd armor the vessels with barbed wire all the way around.

35:18Alistair Carns: They'd electrify the fences sometimes on the edge of the vessel. These were big tankers. Think oil tankers. The big, massive. Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, like big, big. Probably, you know, well, I'll say medium size, but nevertheless, they were massive when you come up against them. And on the bridge, which is where the captain sits, they would armor all the windows up and they'd be sailing out of a letterbox size opening. Right, okay. And so you had to sneak on board what was in international waters and then you had to cut into the bridge to get control of the ship to sail it out of Iranian waters, territorial waters and get it into this UN holding area.

35:53So give me an example of a time you did that. Are you coming in a helicopter? Are you coming in a boat? Are you climbing up here? So we come in both. So jump over, get all six men on.

36:02Alistair Carns: We'd go and try and find an open door. They'd always lock the doors and sort of weld them shut. We'd find the easiest breach point and then we'd get a still saw and then rack the still saw up. As soon as the still saw went noisy, everyone in the ship knew were there and they'd try and sail it back into international waters. Because into national waters and if they knew they went into arena waters, we'd have to get off. And then we'd cut through the door and then you'd squeeze through the hole and then get hold of the bridge wheel and like yank it to the right and sail the ship out and then your whole team would come through and then you'd have to detain the crew, hold the crew, make sure they've got all the support they require because sometimes they're in a pretty bad state.

36:38Alistair Carns: And then we'd take the ship out. But to take it down, while we were climbing up the ladder, a helicopter would come in and fast rope people onto the roof of the ship at the same time. Unless it would happen in the middle of the night or just at daybreak. How do you know whether they're armed or not? If you're going in, are you thinking, who do we need to look after? Who are the good people and who are the bad people here? What's the instinct you've got to be thinking of? What are you looking for at that time? Well, I mean, you're always worried if they're armed. the reality is on these individuals they were usually coerced or forced into trying to smuggle in these vessels so as soon as they would fight you at the door and as soon as you got in you're overwhelmed they'd be like they'd just give up straight away and sit down on the ground what was usually the case we did hundreds of these vessels over time some were more aggressive than others they would hook big batteries up to the rails so when you're climbing up the side if you held on to the reel that one of my mates held on to the reel literally shot off into the sea oh my god don't touch the rails he got literally like someone have a cartoon yes and flash and he went fly off see the burns on his hands and uh another time i was boarding up the side of the vessel and um the rib the which is the boat came in to pick me up yeah and it banged into the bottom of the ladder and as the wave took it up it took the hooks off the ladder so i went and fell backwards into the sea.

38:03And then so I was like yelling as I was going down the side of this massive tanker. It's like a big ship. I can hear the propeller like, oh my God, I'm like, Jesus Christ, I'm going to get chewed up by the propeller. So I shout at the boat to come over. The boat comes in and instead of like picking me up, he squashes me against the boat, like completely wins me. And then I get sucked under the ship, like genuine, like under the ship, get dragged under the hull. God knows how I miss the propeller. Go through the propeller and then I don't surface for about 150 meters behind the boat in the middle of the night.

38:32and I had to call this American Seahawk out with a big searchlight to come and find me. I was like hanging out, just watching the ship go off into the distance. My God. It was a young Marine car, 20 years old. Oh my God. Yeah. When you're back in England and you're not on tour, what's your sort of day-to-day? I always describe being in the military

38:53Alistair Carns: of training an athlete to run a race day in, day out, year in, year, and never allowing them to run the race. yeah that's frustrating what does the athlete want to do he wants to think of the most of course yeah the reality is my personal view is that wars in Afghanistan and Iraq you know we took over 400 dead for example hold on hold on there was over 400 dead yeah of our boys yeah in what period of time in Afghanistan from what 2005 6 all the way through to 19 now that's a lot yeah but statistically in comparison to other conflicts it isn't a huge amount in Ukraine now by the time we're doing this podcast what 12 o 'clock by the time you hit 12 o 'clock on the front line Ukraine there will already have been a thousand casualties is that right?

39:49by the end of the day there will have been 2 ,000 casualties I mean it's incomprehensible and so probably in two to three days between the Ukrainians and the Russians, they will have taken the casualties

40:05Alistair Carns: we took in 20 years of Afghanistan. Yeah, okay. And this is my point about what do you want to do? Do you want to run your race? You always want to go in operations, or I always did, because actually statistically out of those 35 guys, 25 guys, one, two, three, maybe killed or wounded, statistically there's quite a low chance of something happening. When you go into a conflict like Ukraine where you've got a high chance, 50 % chance of getting casualty, which is similar to First World War, Second World War. Suddenly it's, I wouldn't say the fun or the eagerness to redeploy goes away. Do you think there could be a World War III and it come to Great Britain any time?

40:44Alistair Carns: So I've always said in this case that in the last 24 years, I've never seen the geopolitical environment so fracturous and so fragile. You know, I just got promoted from the veteran's job to the minister and forces job. And the first day of that job, we had Israeli bomb landing in Qatar and Russian drones landing in Poland. Yeah. Okay. And the difference is that in the last 20 years, we've had a choice to be involved in conflict. Like we decided Iraq, we decided Afghanistan, we've decided Libya. In the next conflict, we may not have a choice. It may be an Article 5 or a NATO obligation that we have to get involved.

41:24Alistair Carns: and the scale of a conflict against a major hostile state like Russia compared to an insurgent group in Afghanistan or even indeed the Iraqi army in the other days is a different league. And we need to make sure that not just our military is prepared, but our nation is resilient enough to be able to deal with that because it's one and all when that happens. How dangerous is Putin? I think he's incredibly. reckless rather than dangerous. Reckless in the fact that I think he's continually testing and pushing boundaries. And the reality is he's facing the most effective military alliance in history, which is NATO.

42:13Alistair Carns: And if you add up the aggregate of NATO, it is massive. We've got a lot of work to do, industrial capacity, reunitions, certain types of systems. But NATO is the most effective military alliance in the history of the human race. Okay. And that is way more than the military have got and the ammunition they've got in Russia. Yeah. So individually, you know, the UK could turn around and go, your standing forces is 70 ,000 strong, the army. But when you aggregate it with Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, Spain, France, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. What does that come to roughly? I don't need to check, but it's huge.

42:51Alistair Carns: Okay. So you end up with a standing military of like a million, two million of professional, not conscripts, professional soldiers. And that's a really different. And then when you then go to your reserves, add that up. So the guys that do part-time, so I'm still a reserve Marine, for example. And then you go to the individuals you can then call upon to stand up and serve. You're into, you know, it's huge. And so, you know, NATO is a really effective defensive line. What's the point where Donald Trump would actually attack Russia? Well, you've got to remember that between Russia and America, they have more nuclear weapons than any other part of the world.

43:28Would you feel confident if Putin stepped out of line and did something crazy that Donald Trump could come in with NATO and take out Russia? So America is part of NATO. Yeah. There's been a lot of sort of deliberation over President Trump's commitment to NATO.

43:44Alistair Carns: That's what I've been seeing lately. But I think that interestingly, and I generally mean this, America has to deal with two concerns. One, it has to deal with a Russian conflict on the edge of Europe. And secondly, it needs to deal with a changing security architecture in Southeast Asia. Okay. And it really needs to focus, I think, from an American perspective on Southeast Asia, whilst ensuring Europe can deal with the problems on its eastern flank of Russia. and so I don't think you're seeing in any way shape or form a disinvestment from NATO. I think you're seeing a push for more of those European countries to spend more in defence which is correct because we have been reliant on America for too long from a defence perspective and I think Trump and the American system is now happy that that's happened and now you're seeing them saying absolutely NATO is central to our alliance.

44:34Alistair Carns: You're on the way to target, you're on the boat it's rough, there's sea hitting you in the face, guns digging into your leg, you're getting really pissed off. Everything's a bit annoying. Kick backwards, you go into the sea, everything goes quiet. Okay. Nice and calm. You're in control. You know what you need to do. Here you go. The surface is like the news. Everything's loud. Every small action is aggravated. Every word is championed in the social media and twisted. But underneath there's this bunch of securocrats, politicians slash diplomats who keep it calm and we always know that America is one of our biggest and most effective alliances and thank God thank God it's so so important important from a military perspective economic perspective so irrelevant to the politics on the top that rough stuff on the top of the combat swimming down underneath there's you know it's balanced it's calm and it's collective and long long may it continue.

45:34Thank God Donald Trump's mum I'm Scottish. Well, I want to say his golf course is close to Aberdeen, isn't it? Yeah, that's right. It's north-east of Aberdeen. That's right. I need to go for a round out or something, see if I can dust off my own skills. Because it's like, I'm not into politics whatsoever. When I hear that Donald Trump is supportive of Great Britain, it just gives my mind at ease. Because someone who doesn't look into politics, when I see the chaos going on in Russia, from a small family and friends around here thinking, what's going to happen to us? We've got a military of 70 ,000 people.

46:03We're tiny compared to anything else. What would be the situation if he could literally just press a button and send a missile to the UK, a nuclear missile? Could that happen? Who? The Russians. Yeah.

46:16Alistair Carns: I mean, but then remember, we've got a nuclear deterrent. You know, every day of every year, there's a submarine subsurface somewhere in the ocean that on board has nuclear capability. And so. Which means. Which means that he couldn't do that because in return he'd receive the same. And so you end up with this thing called mutually assured destruction. Yes. Which is what has kept nuclear peace for so long. Tick for tack. Tick for tack. Okay. And it's so huge, no one would dare do it. But if you say he's reckless, he actually could press the red button. He could send something over here. Okay, you say we can send it back to him.

46:56But by the time this country gets hit with a nuclear bomb, that's going to affect a lot, a lot of lives. So there's a thing called Article 5.

47:03Alistair Carns: Yes. Right. So imagine Article 5 is this. Imagine it is an agreement. Imagine it's an invisible barrier that goes up around all of our nations. If Putin does anything into that and breaks down that barrier, he triggers a response and it's one in all in. Okay. And so Vladimir Putin, for his recklessness, will recognize that if he tests NATO and NATO responds wholeheartedly. They're finished. They're finished. Right, okay. And that's the brilliance of NATO and its collective defense. So going back onto your journey, Al, the journey you've gone through of all the tours, et cetera, when was the first time you received your medal from the Queen?

47:42No.

47:43Alistair Carns: So I got a military cross in 2011. And I got that actually from the Prince of Wales, who's now the king. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so I got a military cross. And what was that military cross for? That was for an intense activity at two places in the mountain, which I was then very gratefully received the military cross. It's worth noting that that military cross, yes, it was given to me, but it was the team that made that operation successfully. It wasn't just me. It was the guy to my left, the guy to my right. The collective team made it off. And it stopped this route, which meant that a huge amount of munitions never got to the Taliban.

48:32Alistair Carns: How many people on your team? So we had a mixed team of our guys and Afghans as well. You're a team of Afghans on your side as well. Yeah. What, were they getting paid off? No, they were our sort of specialist. Insiders? Horses, yeah. They were great. They were good to go. They knew the language, knew the terrain. How good were they? They were really good, yeah. Did you learn anything off them? Yeah, we were always learning every day. They were good. They worked side by side with us and everything. because a bunch of usually white guys turning up to a bunch of Afghans where actually you need the cultural understanding to go into people's houses and speak to them and sort of get their human intelligence and understand and indeed just talk to them to work out where the Taliban were, where they weren't.

49:26Alistair Carns: We talked before about the civilians and the Taliban hiding amongst each other. Well, the best way to get that is get people from the local area who are already fighting for us to come with us. Yeah, perfect. and they would just maybe like, no, he's lying. And that's where they fit in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was hilarious. It was absolutely brilliant. Some of the stuff they'd come out with was just amazing. He'd be like, no, no, no. He's not even from here. His dialect, you know, he's, you know, like be like Newcastle, somewhere from Newcastle in Cornwall going, yeah, yeah, I'm from Cornwall.

49:53Yeah. He's like, no, no, you're not right. He's a foreign fighter. He's come from Pakistan. I'm like, all right, okay. Who else say that? A Cockney or a Scouse. That's exactly, because we can't tell. Yeah. What's that feeling like killing someone?

50:08Alistair Carns: Yeah, I don't want to talk about that. Yeah. Yeah. I was really good at my job in the military. Remember, I was an officer as well, so I was often commanding the guys in the system. But after you've done something like that, the emotion afterwards, is it quite, I've cut the emotion off because I was doing a job for my country. No one should ever have to do what the military has to do. The reality is for as long as the human race exists, we probably will have to. I never will ask anybody to do anything I haven't done myself. I will always put myself in harm's way before my men. But I also accept if I do that too often and something were to happen to me, it would be detrimental to my men because I'm the guy that's in charge.

51:01Alistair Carns: Yeah. Okay. And so there's this balance. Yeah. There's always this balance. And I've been in too many situations over my time of where you've had to run that final race. And I walked away and others haven't. Yeah. And I always go back to stay low, move fast. That's your thing, isn't it? Stay low, move fast. I love that. I'm going to start using that. Is there a rule or is there a law when you've got one-on-one with someone, when you're allowed to let loose on that person and open fire? Is there a rule in the military? Yeah, of course there is. I mean, we're bound by international law. The reality is if an individual is going to cause immediate harm or use lethal force, then you can engage with proportionate force to neutralize that.

52:00Alistair Carns: That's a reality. And that's always the case. Remember that there were some individuals, not all, in Afghanistan who were the most fundamental of foreign fighters. I mean these guys some of them not all of them but some of the guys that we came up against were I mean they would die they all had suicide vessel I mean they they would die before they're captured they will they will run to you and blow themselves up that's sometimes and I always said the only advantage they had over us was a suicide bomber yeah okay because they'd happily just clack themselves off how mad is that how mad is it someone to put on a suicide bomb wrapped around and knowing they're just going to go charging at you and just let it off it's mad and yeah so it was exceptionally dangerous because you never know like has this guy got a suicide vest on or not is that his chest yeah yeah yeah yeah what happened in Manchester yesterday unbelievable completely unacceptable um yeah yeah mad

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54:11Was it two men with suicide bombs? Stabbing people in Manchester? Something?

54:15Alistair Carns: Yeah, so I think they've both been found that they weren't suicide bombed, but they were built to look like it. My God. Yeah, it's just completely, I mean, it's completely unacceptable in our country to have that going on. On any side, any religion, don't really care. Yeah. It's nuts. Yeah. How do you feel? What's your role today? So I'm the Minister for the Armed Forces. Yeah. So I look after all of our operations and policy on behalf of John Healy, who's the Defense Secretary. The good thing is that I've been on them all, but I understand the military quite well. I've been on a lot of the operations already.

54:50Alistair Carns: And so I can immediately help our armed forces to make sure they get what they need to do the job we're asking them to do. Yeah. That's why it's fantastic you come on here, Al, so people can actually really see who you are. because like we were chatting off air before, they might see you, gray-eyed man, built like a solid, strong man in a suit, but actually they don't really know your background. They'll go, oh, apparently it was military or something, but actually to hear these stories, you've been there, done it and got the t-shirt, it's going to create even more respect. Yeah. And, you know, it's what I would say in the job I'm in now, why did I go into politics?

55:24Yeah. I mean, this is, so I went in front of the most respective institutions in the UK, the military.

55:28Alistair Carns: Yeah. Honest integrity. stepped across to become a politician to try and deliver more change to make sure we're ready for the next conflict, make sure our armed forces and our families and our veterans are getting what they want. Because I realized that actually that's how you deliver change on the scale that's needed. And immediately as you step across, people are like a dirty politician. You're a liar. You're a traitor. Of the amount of social media shit I get on, it's unbelievable. Now I've seen it, usually in a lot of cases from veterans, like you've sold us out, you've done this, It's like, guys, I am fighting my very hardest to protect everything in the military because I've been in the military for 24 years.

56:06I get it. And I get visceral abuse. It's unbelievable. Is that because, like you mentioned the words a minute ago, integrity, telling the truth. We all grew up for that. But every time we look into politicians, they're not telling the truth and they're not integral. Like, how do you feel stepping into it? Did you know what you were about to step into or not really? So I worked when I was in the later end of my career, I worked for three sectors of state.

56:28Alistair Carns: So I worked for three of the sector of state for defense, Michael Fowle and Gavin Williamson and Penny Moore. So I understand politics. I think there is a bit where we, I haven't met a politician yet. Who tells the truth. That isn't trying to do the very best. Yeah. Isn't trying to do the very best. For themselves maybe. Well, no, I genuinely mean this. I disagree. But then you're giving me an example of where I genuinely, all the politicians I've met, I mean this, and maybe I haven't met the bad ones yet, but they're all working like seven hours, seven days a week, genuinely seven days a week to try and help their constituents.

57:05And that could be like, in my case, sorry,

57:08Alistair Carns: a lady in Birmingham coming to me and saying, hey, I'm going to be made homeless tomorrow. How can you, you know, am I sleeping in the car with my kids? Like, how are you going to help me out? All the way through to a major life science project for 3 ,000 jobs, try and give jobs and economic income into my constituency. all the way through to buying back seven billion pounds worth of defense housing for families, all the way through to supporting, you know, clearances for operational permissions in a faraway country to protect this country. Yeah. And it's the same for every MP. We've just collectively gained such a bad reputation that the political class now, it doesn't matter if you're the best person in the world.

57:52You could be a saint. You could be in a military one day, step across the road the next day, young politician, boom, you're a lying, filthy politician. Well, prime example yourself. You just nailed on the head. From everything you're telling me from 24 years is an unbelievable soldier, loyal, British, I'm fighting for my country to then trying to help the country. People then put you straight into a bracket, right? I climbed up Everest, right, to raise money for charity. I couldn't do six to eight weeks because I didn't want to take time out from my constituency, from veterans, or indeed my political role.

58:25So I did it in six and a half days. And people are like, unbelievable, you took six and a half days.

58:29Alistair Carns: I declined Everest and raised£300 ,000 for charity. So unacceptable. How do you deal with that? How dare you take six and a half days? I remember we had this conversation before, but how are you dealing with that? You're a man who is probably the most integral human, one of the most integral humans I've ever met. You're brought up to tell the truth, and all of a sudden you're getting pulled into this whole political world where people are now slagging you off. How do you actually mentally deal with that? My view is in three, four years' time, at the general election, if I can lay my head on my pillow and go, I've done everything I possibly can to ensure I've achieved for veterans, for the armed forces, for the country, for my constituency, that I'm happy.

59:10Alistair Carns: I don't really bother about anybody else. Would you care whether the position you're in now, whether it was conservative, labor, or reform? Do you not care? So I've always been apolitical previously. Okay. The reason I went to labor, and this is the one thing that holds me to labor is about social mobility. So this country is made up of the working class. That's a reality. I was given an opportunity and I had the choice of the rigs, northeast Scotland, go on the rigs as roughneck probably. Military or go slightly off the rails. I chose the military and I got all the opportunity and I end up where I am today.

59:49Alistair Carns: and no one's a self-made man. You always get help by people to sort of project you through life. And the analogy I use is if a flower is wilting, you do not deal with a flower. You deal with its environment. You deal with the soil, the pH, the water, the food, the pruning. It's the same with people in this country. The reason people don't succeed or don't realize their ambition is because the opportunity and the environment isn't there for the first place. So how do we, and labor is big on this, how do we create an environment to allow people to realize their ambitions? That's what it's all about.

1:00:26How do we create it? Because there are some sections of society that are born into a terrible deal. And we've got to level that out. And we've got to do it. And I'm absolutely passionate about three things. One, how do we create the healthiest nation in the world? At the moment, we are the sick man of Europe. I mean, what is going on? And we wonder why our NHS is really struggling. That's because kids now, some of them have muscle wastage because they're not even out playing anymore. Absolutely. And people, the sugar and everything you go down, every oil you go down, sugar, sugar, sugar. Because it's cheaper.

1:00:57Ultra processed food. People don't know what they're putting in the body. It's unbelievable. So how do we educate our country to really take care? And the reality is me and you, I'm sorry, we're done. We're already got our habits. But a 60-year-old now may be 16 at the end of a Labour government. They may be 11 at the end of a Labour government. We can inculcate into them healthy living, better mental and physical awareness. Like, let's just get that done. That's spend to save. The second bit, from my perspective, is education.

1:01:27Alistair Carns: Like, I went to pretty, like, I enjoyed it, a good school, average, you know, normal school. How do we make ourselves an education superpower? The reality is, across the world, you will never see a great education system and a faltering economy put together. Like, the two don't go together. When you have a poor education system, you end up usually having a poor economy. So how do we pump prime the education sector? And that's absolutely critical. And then the third one is we're out of Europe now. How do we make Britain become the business center of both Europe and the globe again? Like how do we make it really positive for business to set up here in the UK?

1:02:03Stop taxing everyone since that's high taxes. But this is the problem. So you go to number one and number two. Yeah. The reality is, and we've got to own, yes, the conservatives' left supply, but we've got to own it now. But you can't do everything you want to do. And so it's some really difficult... But it's not incentivizing. As an entrepreneur and running free business, it's not incentivizing. I'm staying here. I'm staying in this country. I've got 10, 15, 15 mates gone. Well, I'm going to Cape Town. I'm going to Portugal. I'm going to Dubai. And these wealthy millionaires are leaving. These millionaires employ lots of people.

1:02:36These are the brains behind our country. And we're just losing them left, right and center. There's a thousand millionaires and more millionaires each month leaving the country. That's not cool. You know, we are, this country is the bedrock of small businesses, and small businesses can't make money at the moment because the government are putting up the taxes and squeezing everyone. So this is another interesting fact, you know, politics aside, 75 % of the taxes come from 25 % of the population. But when you try and describe that, it gets twisted. And so I go back to this spend-to-save model on health, education, business etc we've really got to focus on the three four big ticket items and drive it home when you when you boil this down when you round it all down the reality is from my perspective this is about creating an environment that's really positive to be brought

1:03:27Alistair Carns: up in gives you equal opportunity allows you to realize your ambition just like i had the reality is i would have gone to rigs or i would have gone wayward i went to military and i got given a great opportunity we need to do that for the youth of the nation but to get to that we need a leader who's optimistic. Hey, you saw the party conference. Come on, he was super optimistic. Mate, is he your boss? Yeah. Well, John Healy's my boss, the Defence Secretary.

1:03:54I find this hard, this bit here. The reason I find it hard is because you're a leader. You're optimistic. You've got everything that this country wants. We've got a leader who's pessimistic. Oh, right, right. So that's... And I'm finding it hard and he's not a leader of people. His first day in, he's like, guys, this is going to be a nightmare. leading forward. It's not cool for our country. So there's different types of leaders. Remember where Labour Party has come from. So the Labour Party was formed,

1:04:21Alistair Carns: I always say it was chiseled out of the mines in Northeast England, the coal miners. It was hammered out of the shipyards in Govan, Northern Ireland, Liverpool. And it was formed through the trade unions of the Industrial Revolution, the factories across this country. Like it was hardcore, working class. it shifted several years ago to quite far left under corbyn and you know i wouldn't be in labor party if corbyn was running now and then it's taken a monumental leadership and shift to bring it from the far left middle left to where the most of this population sits which is the center left center right decent transparent honest people that is leadership of all the ins and outs of politics.

1:05:11That is leadership to bring the party to there. And now we've just got to get the country back on its feet. When we talk about pessimistic, the worst type of leaders are the ones that downplay this country, talk about negativity, spread division, and then give themselves the credit of being the only answer to the problems of which they've made. And I'm not going to name many names here, but some of the policies I've heard coming out of other parties, for example, if you're in the military and you said to me, right, Al, talk me through the planning, which you did a minute ago. If someone said to me, right, I want you to go and attack that bridge.

1:05:54And I went, right, no problem. How are we going to do it? And they said, I don't know. I wouldn't follow that guy to the toilet. Yeah. Because that's what you're getting from one or two parties who are coming out. hey, we're going to get$150 billion back from diversity and inclusion. We're going to get rid of it all. It's like, you ain't going to make$150 billion. You might make$10 million. Well done. We're going to kick everybody out in an indefinite leave to remain. We're going to kick out people who've been here for six years that have got families in schools that are paying their taxes. We're going to kick them all that.

1:06:21Worst idea ever. Hold on a second. I fought five tours in Afghanistan. You're going to kick women and girls back to Afghanistan to be flogged to death by the Taliban? Niche, niche. I ain't following you. think what think what you know think through your policies stop trying to sow division sow negativity and then present yourself as the only solution there are no easy solutions i get i get your i get your point we've got to go harder faster bigger stronger i get that but we need to be careful we don't drag ourselves down um you know gold lace path ends up in a disaster i said early on a vision without a plan is a dream there's every risk if we follow certain leaders you go a vision is a plan is a nightmare because they haven't thought it do you know what i was thinking be a great thing to do what every sunday night 7 p.m the whole nation watches on bbc or whatever channel is and we call out the politicians who have been caught out lying

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1:08:25Yeah, that may go down really well. I mean, some of the stats. Wouldn't that just be a beautiful thing? Do you not think that would be a thing where people are then made accountable for? Because I don't really know politics, but this last year I've paid more attention to the way I've seen our country go. I've paid more attention to see what's going on. We were taught and we would grow up, have integrity and tell the truth. So why don't we call at 7 p.m., call it, politicians who have caught out lying because we can prove it because they said that six months ago. Now they're saying this, call them out.

1:08:56I think that would be wonderful. I actually – Would you back that? So I would back.

1:09:01Alistair Carns: I always back explanation around things that we've said or done. my honest view is when you sit down and talk to people about the difficult policy you can make usually there is no issue so you get that far left and the far right well you know but the majority of people like okay i get it now the problem is that in today's society and this is a problem that we have for our children whether we like it or not they take most of their information 15 to 35 seconds of social media and so your ability to explain the detail behind your decision thinking it's like impossible because they switch off and they flip but that's the beauty of long form content like this because you can't hide from this exactly not you i'm saying people who have long form so you can't hide from it because there's nothing doesn't get edited it's like boom and that's why i think this is really important yeah like people sit down and have decent conversations and stay engaged and listen yeah and because today's society they're on dopamine hits when they turn left and right on this switch i want to go back you got your first medal 2011 11 what was your next medal uh i got uh ob uh from uh i forgot princess anne gave me the ob and what was that for that was for my role in commanding as a commanding officer um so i was a commanding officer of a unit and we did some really good work ranging from protecting the uk all the way through to overseas work.

1:10:21Alistair Carns: I got recognised and on his list for it. Massive respect, by the way. Cheers. OBE. Thanks. Yeah. When you write your name, do you whack on the end OBE? Yeah. It's really sad. It's not a sound, man. It's proud. DSO OBE MCMP. That's all it is. Say that again. Say that again. DSO. Al Carnage.

1:10:45Al Carnage. Go on. Yeah, I was going to... I was trying to keep that down because they could skew that in the media all sorts of ways. Carnage strikes again. The DSO OBE. DSO. So the next medal I got after the OBE was a distinguished service order. Lovely. From? From the king. So DSO OBE MC MP. MC? Military course. And the last one? Member of parliament.

1:11:13Alistair Carns: Member of parliament. Yeah, from my sins. Is your mum still about? Yeah, she's a legend. She must be super proud, right? She's a legend. But she, I mean, she brought up five kids. Well, that's what I'm saying. Five kids by herself. I went back, dog. It's Christmas time. She's in the same house. She's still in the same house. Yeah, I went to the bedroom. This is like a squirrel. She hoards everything. So all the old toys are there. So I bring my kids up there. You'll get my old toys out. It's good reminiscing. But they went out to my bedroom. I was like, how the hell did me, because my two brothers are six feet as well.

1:11:43How did three boys for six years stay in this room? two double beds it's hilarious I mean it must have caused I mean I my kids gnaws me out now when I'm in a you know a relatively decent sized house yeah five kids in that house hilarious good banter though I bet I bet it's a good banter when we go back up as well how do you want to be remembered? good dad that's what I want I want a good dad I'd like to do some make some change the sticks so there's Valor program we'll launch for veterans got to make that stick. Let's redo how we look after our veterans. And then I'd like to make sure our armed forces are ready and good to go should anything happen.

1:12:29So I'm always trying to push the system forward a little bit. What can you personally do to help the veterans? So I mean, I've just come out of the veterans job, been in it for a year. The reality is a postcode lottery across the UK when you're looking for help. And when you look for help as a veteran, you have to tell your story between six and nine times to land on the right charity or the right bit of the system to get the right help. It's a mess. Some are really good. Some systems are really good. Some systems aren't so good. There's 1 ,730 plus military charities in the UK. Bloody hell. There's a billion pound industry.

1:13:091 ,700 charity just in the UK? Plus. And there's a billion pounds in the industry. but yeah we have veterans going without yeah and the reason that's happened is because the government has never taken responsibility for our veterans yeah so all these really good people have started their own charities you know in the middle of against that what i've when i stepped in last year i said hey the government needs to take a bit responsibility for this not to dampen

1:13:33Alistair Carns: down the flexibility and agility of these charities but to ensure that we can help them focus um their effect on right make this money go further and so that was this valor program which looks at sort of a new headquarters liaison officers, field officers going into the councils to make sure they're held to account and then Valor centres across the country that provides sort of your door to open if you need to go get help. Can you tell me why our homeless veterans aren't put in to hotels and looked after? Yeah, so here's some statistics where the RBL did some brilliant statistics RBL? Royal British Legion Perception versus reality you're less likely to be homeless if you're a service service personnel.

1:14:15But the perception is you're far more likely to be homeless. It's really interesting, the stats. The stats are you're going to be damaged if you join the military. When we think of veterans, we always think of people who have been damaged because there's 1 ,733 charities need to raise money. And the way you raise money is that you describe your most needy individual that needs the most need. And as a result, the perception of society at the moment is like, you join the military, you are going to be damaged physically or mentally. The reality, 83 % of all military leave the services, go straight into employment.

1:14:48And a large percentage of them, we never hear from again. But there is a chunk that need lots of help and a chunk that need even more help. And we've got to make sure we look after them. And so there's a multitude of charities out there from a homeless perspective. I launched the Op Fortitude program that's put another three, I think just recently, another 3.4 million. We've housed over 900 people who've had 2 ,000 referrals. were working on it. Okay. To get as many. Do we know how many homeless veterans are on the streets? Do we know that fact? So there's a rough stat. Yeah. But here's the interesting bit.

1:15:20We don't even know how many veterans we've got. Like it's mad. Yeah. So we were talking about NATO and Russia early on. Right. Army goes to fight. The reserves stand up. They start to create training centers and other army. And we need to recruit more people to feed the army. Mm-hmm. The best people to go straight into that are veterans because there's hundreds of thousands of them between 19, 20 years old to 55 that have left the military who have been trained, know what they're doing, have different skills. We don't even know where they are. We roughly can tell you. For example, I was just east of Liverpool the other day.

1:15:58There's about 6 ,000 in that constituency. I can roughly tell you, but I can't tell you who they are. I can't tell you what they've done. I can't tell you I can pull them back in. In the Cold War, we knew exactly those details. Is there not a hub where if I'm on the street and I've served my country, I'm brassic, I've got nothing, I'm sleeping on the streets. Is there not a hub that these men can go to and say, I am homeless. Can you put me in a hotel, please? So there's seven. Every night of the week for 365 days a year so I can get myself clean and healthy and back on track again. There's 700 hubs.

1:16:32the difference is that those hubs provide different sort of set standards and capabilities because there's no regulation so there's 700 of them there's there's various different housing charities in particular help people who you know may have an addiction or you know go go off the

1:16:49Alistair Carns: rails a little bit to help them pull on provides them some stability they sort of transitory housing so they go in they get a full welfare wrap and then they then get pushed into private rental and they get monitored and try and get them back up on track. So there are hubs across the country. But this goes back to my point about there is no standard set of services that is uniformed across the country. It depends where you are. If you're lucky enough to live next to one of those charities, you might get into it. But if you're somewhere else, and I'm just picking up Cornwall and Highlands of Scotland, you ain't going to have access.

1:17:20But it's more difficult to get into housing than it is to go, there's a hotel there that's got 400 rooms. You lot, veterans, thank you so much. massive respect to you everything you've done you've all got a bed guaranteed why can't we do that

1:17:32Alistair Carns: yeah so I mean the reality is for example in Birmingham where I am at the moment there's a deficit of tens of thousands of houses there is no easy solution to the housing problem other than to build more houses and the government has committed to do that that's going to take a lot of time a lot of time they're talking about building that's not going to happen it's going to take a huge amount of time but the one 1.5 million houses are going to be built that's not going to happen maybe a big developer everyone's looking and going that's not going to happen that's just they're just talking about it but if we can even get a percent so there's a balance in government and this is the bit about um i suppose linked to not the lying bit but promising lots and delivering little of where it could be called lying well it's because what you've got to do with the system and i do this i do this quite a lot you've got to push right a mark so you got i got to say hey listen i want you to deliver um you know this much this many houses um because i accept that if I don't push the system as hard as possible, they'll come left of wherever my aiming mark is.

1:18:32Alistair Carns: And so I've always had this policy in my leadership is I'm going to go hard right and I'm going to accept. I mean, I want to get hard right, but I'm going to accept the system will never be able to achieve that. And they're going to drop left of it. Bureaucracy, paperwork, red tape, price of materials, free money, etc. If you go half on your speedometer, you're going to get a quarter. If you go quarter, you ain't coming off. You ain't coming off. Yeah. Okay. So I'm, and I'm not saying this is a government policy, but I've always in mind been like, hey, far right. Yeah. How much do you need for Valor?

1:19:0520 million? No, no, no, no. I want 30. Yeah. Okay. Because I'm going to accept, or in fact, I want 50. Yeah. So I accept I'm not going to get 50, but it'll drop left. If I go 30, I'll get 50. Yeah. Yeah. So I was pushed to the right. What would you say to any veterans out there who might be slagging you off or have slagged you off in the position you're in right now? Yeah.

1:19:24Alistair Carns: So first of all, the grassroots feel super important to me. So constructive and balanced arguments say, hey, I disagree with that. We could do this. We could do this. And I try and get back to as many people as I can, but there's hundreds of people come every day. One of the biggest issues is Northern Ireland. So the Northern Ireland legacy issue, you'll see that bumping around. The reality is the last legacy act that we put in place, which gave sort of immunity to both terrorists and veterans, would not have survived contact with international human rights, ECHR, or even our own courts. So it would always have been legally challenged.

1:20:03Alistair Carns: So we end up in this position. We had to rewrite the Legacy Act. When I spoke to all the veterans groups, went out there and said, right, they were like, hey, listen, don't take away immunity because what's happening is in Northern Ireland, they're using the process to punish us. They know that none of us will be found guilty, but they're using the process to drag us back to courts and sort of punish us for service in Ireland. And so we've designed these six protections to put in place to ensure that process doesn't become the punishment and to ensure that no one can rewrite the history that in Northern Ireland, 90 % of all the casualties and killed were caused by the IRA or other terrorist groups.

1:20:39And so what I would say is I am digging out blind to support veterans, support the armed forces and support the military, indeed, and make the country a better place. But I accept I'm never going to be able to achieve everything for everybody. for everyone yeah and they're really difficult decisions yeah yeah there's no at no point do I sit and go I'm going to see how I can make life harder yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah would you support Ant Middleton becoming the mayor of London

1:21:07Alistair Carns: so I support anybody to run for the mayor of London I just want to make sure that London ends up as a you know really progressive and safe place as we move forward do you think London's a safe place as we sit today statistically it's safer than when we took over. And again, this is it. Statistics. Statistics. I don't believe a word. 100 % of the statistics are incorrect. Yeah, that's right. But the point being is, again, interrogate these facts because people use it to, hey, don't get me wrong, it needs to be safer. There is a, hey, there's an interesting point. When you were young, Dodger, when did you ever see extreme violence or pornography?

1:21:52when you were really young. I grew up with a lot of violence. 10, 15? Yeah, I grew up living above pubs. So we had doormen bouncers back in the day. So I was always hanging around the doors as a six-year-old, seven, eight, nine, ten. And so I saw a lot of stuff kids shouldn't see. But your normal kid probably wouldn't have seen it to live as an adult, 16, maybe 17.

1:22:09Alistair Carns: So like murder, death, killing, you might catch the back end of a movie you're just watching. Yeah. You see the odd fight. Yeah. You'll see a bit of violence at school. you'll see some cartoons with violence in it pornography very rarely ever see it at a young age now one swipe of your finger you're exposed to the most extreme violence and the most extreme sexually explicit and as a result it normalizes as you get older so the biggest group of racists the biggest group of rapists we have growing in the country guess what age they are go on 14 okay 14? 14 years old. Is this the same as 100 % stats I made?

1:22:5314 years old, but do you know why? Because they're seeing it at such an early age. At an early age. It's unbelievable. And so when we talk about, you know, violence, safety, we have a societal issue where access to, and you'll see on your phone, the algorithms pick up on it and they keep feeding you stuff. And so by the time you get to 22, 23, you've got extreme, you've seen extreme violence for like seven, eight years. Whereas usually that would be the prevailed of the police force or the military or you know you just wouldn't see it. Do you think the UK has got freedom of speech as we sit today?

1:23:26Yeah. Yeah I think it does. Yeah I believe in freedom of speech. I believe in freedom of speech. Do you think we got it as we sit today under the new labour? Yeah I think so. I think so. I disagree. Okay. What way? I just don't think people just haven't got that freedom of speech though they have people that are getting put in prison for two years for doing tweets or Facebook messages or this and that it feels like the whole country is being suppressed.

1:23:52Alistair Carns: Yeah. So I, again, I don't know, I'd need to have a look into the sort of stats on how many people have been arrested for that. The only way we see it, this is always interesting, you're going back to the socials and what have you, the only way we can see it really is freedom of speech is when you do see X or Twitter and you're seeing police going around into an old person's house and saying, I saw you wrote something about Facebook, you'll come with me, put the handcuffs on. It's like, wow, is that really happening in our country? it really shocks me really shocks me so that may be the one thing that shocks you what may flip the sort of shock level the other way is that for example largest percentage of crime in Birmingham is domestic violence you never hear about it but you hear about that one grandma getting her handcuffs on and so again this is the point of what sort of what energizes the population and when you're really delve into the detail.

1:24:48Alistair Carns: What is the most, don't get me wrong, it's a slippery slope on freedom of speech. But what have we got to deal with as a government? Is it domestic violence or is it those issues? It's very, whoever takes over as government, I think it's a difficult job. It's a really difficult job. But it starts right at the, I go back to, you know, we talked about the 6 to 10 to 14 year old. Yeah. It starts early on. Like, I genuinely believe the more accustomed and the more violence you see early on makes it more acceptable as you grow up. yeah they the counterbalance that so another interesting i was speaking to a psychologist over the um when you were young and you got you read a book or you saw um like a ladybird book i remember a ladybird book so it's a random one but it's quite funny you know um the red hen gets pulled in the bag by the fox the fox falls asleep and jumps out puts a stone into the bag the fox takes the bag goes hey mother fox i've got the hen empties the bag into the cauldron of hot water the splash comes out and the foxes die.

1:25:45Alistair Carns: That was a kid's book. The foxes are dead. I used to always think it's a bit harsh. But the reason that they used to include life realities in books for a young age was because it prepares you to deal with it in an older age. Books now for children have no real life skills. There's very little dealing with death or emotions. it's all about everyone's friendly and nice and caring and loving and so when young kids get to teenage or a bit older and someone at school turns around and goes I don't care about your feelings, shut up you're like hold on a sec, whoa I'm not prepared for this no this isn't how I was brought up this isn't what I read, this isn't what I taught about and so we've got to make sure we prepare our children for life and that's everything from reading, from social media and as we go through, it goes back to my environment piece if we think that that britain is not as good as it should be it's not individuals fault it's an environmental issue that we've got to sort i would say it's true very very true ow i've really really enjoyed this conversation it's been good it's been really good it's been fun yeah been really fun i don't know where we're going to take it we've taken all over the place it's been covered a lot of topics children's book Afghanistan oh it's been a pleasure mate and like this is called eventful lives you've certainly lived an eventful life it's been good I look back on my life and I genuinely I mean I've made mistakes and boy I've messed up and I've failed things but I genuinely in the hole of love of my life and I've done everything I've wanted to do and I just want to do more make this country great you're a good man cheers mate

1:27:38and leave us a review as it massively helps us grow the show. Cheers, guys.

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