[SPECIAL] When the world's most powerful CEOs enter Downing Street

14:27Helen MacNamara:And where is this billiard dream? I spent ages and ages wandering around trying to find the billiard dream.

14:32Cleo Watson:But of course, that's one of the bits of advice that you're given when you first start is because of the security issues, there is no floor plan. You know, any other business that you would kind of walk into, you'd be given that. And you're just told to kind of wander around the building, get lost and figure it out.

14:46Helen MacNamara:And they're all really helpfully got very confusing names and then sometimes numerical ones, which have made no attention. It's like G36. There's not 36 rooms on this floor at all, but this is G36.

14:57Cleo Watson:I remember an amazing meeting with Tim Cook. And this was just after the prime minister had come in. and they were about to sort of announce that they were opening their Battersea office. And this was a big deal, right? It was going to be Apple, world's most valuable company. Straight after Brexit. Yeah, the biggest site outside the US, etc. So it was like a really big meeting. And so he was in the room next to the cabinet room. So my job was to sort of go in and kind of warm these guys up a little bit and so on. And it was amazing because he was just transfixed by this picture of the Queen. Remember that picture of the Queen smiling?

15:30Cleo Watson:And he was just like, you know, in his sort of South Alabama drawl, you know, just being like, I've been watching The Crown on Netflix, like how amazing it is to be. And I was like, well, do you want a quick tour? And so sort of whizzed him around all the kind of like rooms and so on. And then we ended up being late for the meeting with the PM. But I was just like, it worked really well.

15:50Helen MacNamara:Isn't that so important though, show all the kind of British cultural exports and this is what you're investing in?

15:55Cleo Watson:I just thought this is soft power personified with arguably the world's leading corporate CEO. Here we are taking on a tour of the building. It's Netflix. It's the Queen. Like all of this. And the meeting went really well.

16:07Helen MacNamara:That always is one of the things when people say, oh, you know, we shouldn't work in number 10. It's this dilapidated old building. It's whatever. Actually, like the theatre and the power of it are really special.

16:15Cleo Watson:Exactly. The room that I always wanted for my sort of big business meetings was the small dining room.

16:21Helen MacNamara:Classic.

16:21Cleo Watson:Classic, right. Really cozy. But that was where because.

16:24Helen MacNamara:It's like got nice wooden panels. There was also a large dining room for people interested.

16:31Cleo Watson:Not a medium-sized one, though. But that was, you know, I was dealing with American businessmen looking to invest in the UK. They were in their 50s. And so that was the room where Thatcher and Gorbachev sort of thought the Cold War. And so taking them in there was like a massive kind of thing. Because often the Department of Trade and so on would be working on these investment deals. and then they would be sort of brought into number 10 to kind of like seal it basically. And my being in that room would make that happen.

16:57Helen MacNamara:What's the thing you're most proud of from your time there?

17:00Cleo Watson:Is that a fair question? Staying sane.

17:03Helen MacNamara:That I'm here to tell you this story today.

17:06Cleo Watson:I think, you know, I'm really proud of sort of the different entrepreneurs that we got into the building and sort of the careers that we kind of helped boost with that. And I hadn't really appreciated that was going to be such a big part of the job. But, you know, I'm still in touch with the likes of Ben Francis and so on. And I know they see it as a really kind of like major milestone on their journey and also is what it meant to those kind of thousand people that are employed in the West Midlands that he was invited there to go and kind of present to the prime minister and so on. So that's some of the stuff.

17:37Cleo Watson:There are some things that I worked on towards the end. And it's Tony Blair's kind of classic line about like you actually know what you're doing by the end. But there was lots of stuff that we worked on in that final London Tech Week. in terms of AI scholarships and the AI PhDs that we got in, which I like to think was like quite ahead of time and so on. So there was a lot around that that I'm kind of quite proud of as well. And then the trade trips as well and sort of taking the people on that, they were incredible. And like, again, making sure that different people were going on it, right? So it wasn't just the same and trying to make sure that we got a really interesting mix.

18:14Cleo Watson:And often those groups of people have stayed in touch and so on and kind of done business internally almost. Like it's not necessarily just about a trade trip. So those are some of the things that I'm kind of really proud of.

18:26Helen MacNamara:Yeah, I did really want to ask you about the trade trips because I also just think there's something kind of delightful. The idea of a plane full of drunk journalists and the prime minister and his entourage and then the kind of top people in business. And as you say, some other interesting people on there and you. It is like a sitcom. It's like The Office, but in the air. How do those work? What are they like? I loved the recent footage of Elon Musk going with Trump to China, where he was just kind of sitting around looking nonplussed a lot of the time. What's it like sort of running a school trip with some of Britain's most important CEOs on it?

19:05Cleo Watson:Well, exactly. You sort of, the funny bits were often like the briefings beforehand, right? Because you call all these business leaders in. And I would sort of present to them like what we were going to be doing on the trip. And these were the things that people needed to be aware of and so on. And I was like, look, I know in your lines of work, you're used to being the most important person in the room, but you're not on this trip. So be where you need to be on time, because if you're not there, we will leave. And everyone sort of laughed. And I was like, I've done three trade trips so far. On two of them, I haven't returned to a full cohort of business leaders.

19:37Cleo Watson:So I'm not joking. I'll have to stop then. so that was always a bit of a challenge getting these people in the right places and like my job on it was like I was partly briefing the PM about the sort of various kind of international business leaders she would be meeting out there as well but then I was also sort of as you say a bit of a teacher for the kind of business leaders in terms of looking after all of them and so on and making sure that they were kind of getting on so they almost had like twin tracks when they were kind of like out there so it was quite different with that and yeah I was always trying to make sure there were different kind of people coming along and so on.

20:10Cleo Watson:And the Department of Trade do an amazing job of kind of bringing investment deals. And I was always a bit skeptical, like, pre number 10 of like how impactful these trade trips were, because there would always be a big number attached 10 billion investment or whatever, and 5000 jobs created. And I thought, well, that's not just happening because of the trade trip, but actually, it was a forcing mechanism to get stuff over the line. So they were important to do. And I think that, again, one of the things that will happen is, Keir Starmer's had this in terms of he's been criticised a lot for doing international affairs and spending too long on it.

20:47Cleo Watson:But actually, it is really important to do those things, often as well because other people's countries are run very differently to Britain. And if you want to do business with China or the Middle East, like actually you do have to do it with the kind of with the government there. And so going out government to government made a real impact for these businesses. It would just open so many doors so quickly for them.

21:11Helen MacNamara:And it sort of legitimizes them. Yes. Because one of the things I've been, I mean, I don't know how sensitive you'll feel to this, but when we worked in government anyway, obviously so much of your time was spent trying to get the prime minister in front of various business leaders. And mine was worrying about who he was in touch with, where they were potential party donors, whether they were party donors, what kind of conversations they'd be having, how closely guarded and sort of contained those kinds of meetings were, partly because, Helen will know about this, the good old revolving door and the access between business and lobbying and the government.

21:46Helen MacNamara:I mean, do you think, having really worked on that on the inside, how shameless is the lobbying? and any sort of top tips for a new business that is trying to make headway with an incoming prime minister?

22:00Cleo Watson:Yeah, where to begin? I mean, I think there is a real challenge about how lobbying works. And I think it's changing quite rapidly, actually, because obviously, you've got sort of private lobbying, which is going in and seeing ministers and special advisors, etc but you're seeing more and more now public lobbying happening and I think that is something that we're going to see more of and I think it's particularly a post-COVID thing actually I was reflecting on this that if you were a wedding venue you would have no reason to kind of engage with the government right but because of COVID and what happened there you've ended up and I checked this this morning I think there are two different wedding venue trade associations now that are set up and have probably been since COVID and now they will lobby the government and so on like these won't be big organizations etc but you've just got a huge plethora now of kind of almost single issue trade bodies that have been set up so I think it's quite tough to work out like where your priorities are and you get so much kind of inbound in number 10 it's like how do you make sure that you're getting on the front foot and doing the things that you want to do and meeting the businesses that you want to rather than just dealing with the requests that come out

23:14Helen MacNamara:but my experience of working with previous business advisors in number 10 you had a very different focus like you said you were on entrepreneurs you were on small businesses you were on the people who wouldn't normally get in the front door but you sort of decided to do that yourself it's extraordinary whenever people think that you can't be powerful in these jobs

23:30Cleo Watson:that's the sort of extraordinary thing to have done yeah well it's i think you know two of the things that government and particularly number 10 has is the the convening and the spotlighting power and they are essentially free right and so you can do a huge amount of that and i would often be having round tables getting people in you know so weren't necessarily meetings with the prime minister and so on but just getting interesting people there because it would you know it would be great for their businesses to be able to say they've kind of gone into number 10 it's like working out like how we make more people successful like what is happening further down the kind of

24:04Helen MacNamara:business chain as it were so yeah do you have like unfinished business from things you didn't

24:10Cleo Watson:get around to doing when you were in number 10 yes I've always thought that I would like to to do it again but I'm really enjoying building kind of a business and running the podcast and actually sort of getting my hands dirty myself like one of the things when I left number 10 was like I didn't want to go into lobbying because I didn't want to sit and advise anymore I like I wanted to build something myself. And that's been really interesting. So I think often spads tend to sort of, you know, they're either under 35 or over 50, because you can't do it with young kids, right? Like, it's just takes over your life.

24:43Cleo Watson:Yeah, I would, you know, but I'd like to go back in. And I think I would do it all very differently and have a whole different kind of skill set, etc.

24:50Helen MacNamara:What knowing what you know now from running a business yourself?

24:53Cleo Watson:One of the most common questions, right? It's like, do you miss it? And it's hard when there's been these so many momentous days when their changeovers are happening and whatever you can't help but sort of you know reminisce about it and so on I do miss the trade trips that's the kind of one bit I do uh miss but I love being an entrepreneur and actually building something because so often when you're in number 10 right like sorry to dispel the illusion of the all powerful spad but like some days you're really not that like you know you might as well be shouting

25:21Helen MacNamara:into a hurricane tell me more about these trade trips I'm so intrigued about all these big egos sealed inside a capsule for 12 hours heading to Japan or somewhere.

25:29Cleo Watson:I know. It was quite, like, remarkable, really, all these people who are, as you say, kind of used to being the biggest person in their company. And all of a sudden, you know, they're sort of a big fish in an even bigger pond. And, yeah, these trips were, like, hard work, right? Like, you were running off because you were still sort of dealing with Westminster and what was going on back at home, right? which often when we were in Theresa May time, you know, wouldn't necessarily be going that well and so on.

25:59Helen MacNamara:And also I can imagine just trying to explain that Brexit deadlock to a really successful business person who must just think, what the hell is going on here? And then there are people who are like writing letters to the European Union and splinter parties and all this kind of stuff.

26:14Cleo Watson:There's all that. And then you've also got the like theatre at the beginning of the trip of where all the lobby come up and ask the prime minister questions, right? And, you know, that certainly not, I don't think it's any prime minister's favorite bit, to be fair, but it certainly wasn't Theresa May's. And they're all trying to get one up on each other, right? They want to get the news line, et cetera. I remember one trip we were flying out early on a Monday morning and a journalist asked, Prime Minister, you were at church yesterday. Did you pray for divine intervention with your Brexit deal?

26:43Cleo Watson:And Theresa May just clocked him and said, no. Do you know what I prayed for? Serious questions from journalists. she could be brilliant with stuff like that. This journalist thought he'd got a great question. That's so great.

27:01Helen MacNamara:Miranda Priestley is Theresa May.

27:06Cleo Watson:So there was all that. And then like, so you'd be really busy for the like 72 hours and so on. You'd be running off like two or three different time zones. And we were often visiting multiple countries, right? I remember on the Africa trade trip, we started in South Africa, then Nigeria and Kenya, like it was full on. That was the famous dancing trip, which is all anyone remembers. Did you have a jig? No, but I can tell a funny story about it because I had to leave that trade trip early because I got a wedding on the Saturday and it was quite important that I was there because I was the groom.

27:39Cleo Watson:And I remember my dear friend of ours, Tricky Jackson, saying to me, like, have you got the PM to read out a message at your wedding? And I was like, oh, no, I don't want to do that and whatever. And he was like, you might not want to do that, but your 120 guests will absolutely love it. And I was like, OK, fair enough, actually.

27:58Helen MacNamara:It is a special thing. I had a nice telegram from her to read out of mine. Yeah. I was like, just so you know, I'm a big deal if we want to.

28:05Cleo Watson:Exactly, right. And so I said, it's tricky. OK, well, can you bring it to the wedding on Saturday then? and she wrote this lovely letter on the plane back and sort of thanking me for my work and service. But then the last line was, I know spending the week in Africa won't have been the ideal preparation for your wedding, but I do hope you got some first dance tips from me. I just thought that was a wonderful kind of line. To the point where I think a lot of the guests didn't know whether it was a real letter or not. They thought it was almost sort of a joke.

28:42Helen MacNamara:Because it must have been so topical. It was just days after. Exactly. Oh, gosh. I'll never forget that dancing. God bless her.

28:49Cleo Watson:But it was funny, right? Because I remember having dinner that night with her and the team were having dinner and we were talking about how it had gone, you know, properly viral, like global viral. And I was of the opinion that I thought it was a good thing. And, you know, what was she supposed to do? Stand there kind of stiff and wooden and whatever. you've got all these kids around and so on. And yeah, I mean, I thought it was great. And I think, you know, that conference season went on and danced to it as well. Dancing Queen.

29:25Cleo Watson:That wasn't it. We were in the back room, right? That was not the plan. She just did it, right? Yeah.

29:31Helen MacNamara:Yeah, she's going to come on to the song. We all knew that. And we weren't expecting her to tap dance on. It was so great.

29:38Cleo Watson:So, yeah. But the trade trips were very exhilarating, lots of adrenaline. And, yeah, people would have a drink on the way back as well. I know there's some sort of famous kind of different stories about that. But, yeah, it was very good. You would be pleased that it had gone really well, right?

29:56Helen MacNamara:Yeah, I have heard tales that people have been known to crawl off the plane at the end. I'm sure to as many of you, or you, obviously. What was your worst experience in Number 10? It's talking shouting into hurricanes. if you look back on it now. Let's go to the pit.

30:10Cleo Watson:The day after Grenfell was horrendous.

30:18Helen MacNamara:That's the Grenfell fire in June 2017.

30:21Cleo Watson:It was difficult because it was just post-2017 election, which had not gone to plan. Lots of special advisors had left. And I remember being in that morning meeting with the PM and just thinking just how awful and terrible it all was. and, you know, the government had let people down and whatever, right? Like it was just the worst thing that could kind of happen. And then we didn't get the kind of immediate response right with the PM not going down and so on. And, yeah, it was just a terrible day. And nothing really comes close. I don't have any other really bad days, but that one, I just felt terrible.

31:02Helen MacNamara:Yeah, I recognise that. Yes, absolutely. you did experience the kind of chalk and cheese of prime ministers Theresa May is sort of cautious and perhaps dithering Boris Johnson is more chaotic but in business talk more of a disruptor you know for Andy Burnham what do you think business would actually prefer I think it's difficult because the business community wants stuff to be done right

31:32Cleo Watson:And I think one of the differences between Theresa May and Boris Johnson, or one of the biggest differences with Theresa May, was that she hadn't run an economic portfolio before. So actually, she didn't have sort of big connections in the business community. And so that was always one of the things that I was very conscious of and why I was always trying to push it to the top of the agenda was that she had to meet these people. Whereas Andy Burnham will come in, having been mayor of Manchester for close to a decade, and will have a kind of whole set of business people already that he listens to, takes advice from, and so on.

32:07Cleo Watson:And that was also one of the different, you know, Theresa May would, you know, wasn't very porous in terms of like the people that were communicating with her. Whereas with Boris, you know, you could, somebody could have watched that, you know, probably already been lobbied. By the time he'd come down steps, he'd already been lobbied 15 times via WhatsApp and whatever that day. So that was always like a different challenge because you didn't necessarily know what was happening with that, right?

32:28Helen MacNamara:Nigel Farage recently has made a big song and dance to the fact that he says none of Keir Starmer's cabinet have run a business. Do you think that's actually a problem? I think it's a problem that none of them have.

32:39Cleo Watson:Yes, I don't think you need everyone to have run a business or have private sector experience. But I think you do need people that understand business. Obviously, the Conservative Party, seen as the party of business and so on. I would say that that would be a challenge sometimes for the business community because these people would have quite strong views already about business and what business needed, etc. So in some ways, the business community, I think, prefers dealing with the Labour Party because it's more of a blank canvas in terms of it. But I think that just so much of government is about priorities, right?

33:12Cleo Watson:And what are you going to put at the top of your agenda to kind of make it happen? and business inevitably just falls down the Labour Party's agenda. It's just not intrinsic in it as much. You know, far more likely to speak to the unions, for example. So I think it is a challenge that we aren't persuading more people with private sector experience to get involved with politics across the board, actually. And I'm not quite sure how we change it. I think there is something interesting happening in the business world, to go to that for a second, of where you used to have to spend your whole career in business to sort of make the wealth.

33:49Cleo Watson:Now, because of the internet and access to global markets, you can do that much quicker. So there are a number of entrepreneurs now that have made millions of pounds by their mid 30s, you know, actually, at the start of the century, that wouldn't have really been possible. And I think you've got a lot of those people now looking at politics and thinking, well, the country's not in a great space, like, you know, I've made my money, like, should I get involved, etc. And actually, I think, you know, credit to the Labour Party and the Labour government on this, they have brought a lot of entrepreneurs in, in different guises.

34:22Cleo Watson:So they had Poppy Gustafson of Darktrace as the investment minister. James Timpson of Timpson's came in as the prisons minister. You've had Alex DePledge, who's run a number of successful scale-ups advising Rachel Reeves. You've had Matt Clifford there, who was there under Rish Sunak as well, the chair of Entrepreneur First. So I think, yeah, they've done quite a good job of that in terms of like trying to fill in the gaps around it. But I do think on the politician side, it does make a difference having people that run businesses.

34:52Helen MacNamara:It's really interesting, isn't it? But I think the other thing that's happened to us, I completely recognise that business people have started to realise this is the thing that matters. And also that if they want it to be different, they're going to have to engage in that arena. You can't just sit and fold your arms and say it's all rubbish. You actually have to get more actively involved. And I think, well, I think like you, I think and I hope that that's happening more.

35:10Cleo Watson:I think so. Yeah, I think there's a, I think there's a real recognition of that, that people have got to sign up for their tour of duty, right? Like go into public service and so on in different ways. And I think the government and the civil service, like I said, has been more creative with the ways of bringing those people in, right? Because it is difficult. Often business leaders are running, you know, they can't drop everything at a drop of a hat to kind of run in and go and help government, et cetera. And I think that's probably one of the big areas that often gets kind of like misunderstood between the two of them.

35:44Helen MacNamara:Well, and also you're asked to kind of join an advisory group and a panel on something and you think, fantastic, maybe this is going to be really helpful. And you realise that not all advisory groups actually advise, you know, produce things that happen.

35:56Cleo Watson:So obviously now a lot of my life is about jobs of the future and the skills of the future I talk about. And I think one of the biggest things that I would kind of advise youngsters about is one of the growing areas is getting stuff done in government. like understanding that I think is going to be a real skill of the future and really important for

36:15Helen MacNamara:people yeah oh hurrah for that we did your we did your first day earlier on can you remind us of

36:21Cleo Watson:your last day in Downing Street yes I can so it was I'd done sort of the transition period of about three or four weeks and I'd sort of agreed with Andrew Griffith who was the sort of Boris's new kind of chief business advisor that I would leave at the end of the week. And so it was quite a sort of enjoyable time, right? Like it was, it was strange, really, because so often the last day is a sort of sad and miserable day. But actually, I was sort of going out on my terms and so on. And yeah, it was just good. I was able to do like a proper handover, like, you know, things that would just be a given in like any other world, like I was able to sort of give all my contacts across all the kind of details make all the kind of key introductions and so on and kind of bring the new team up to speed and you know it was it was it was great and I sort of walked out the last day and sort of video called my wife kind of walking I'm free yeah basically we were we were just about to have our first baby as well and it was like mid-August so I was like great we're gonna go and and have a couple of weeks on a beach uh just before we were about to go off on this amazing new adventure.

37:36Helen MacNamara:That sounds nice.

37:38Cleo Watson:So it's really happy. And you'll remember, Adam, because we had a number of conversations around at the time. Like, I was quite keen in some ways to stay and thought I should. And you don't get the opportunity to do public service very often. You know, you should try and stick it as long as you can. I felt I owed it to the country and the party, like, with the knowledge that I had. But, you know, I'd sort of run my race. Like, I'd done my three years. And it was just shattered, basically.

38:10Helen MacNamara:I mean, those three years in particular, and like in terms of dog years, those were three extraordinary years. It's about like doing 100 years of peacetime. It was absolutely extraordinary.

38:18Cleo Watson:Well, the baby arrived a few weeks later. And then, you know, when you start seeing friends again a few weeks after that, everyone was just commenting like, gosh, you're the only person that's had a baby and looks better. I'm sleeping more, I'm more rested. it. So like it was, and I was just like, well, I'm going to figure out what I'm going to do next with my career. Basically, you know, I thought, well, I just need a bit of headspace to work it all out and so on. And, you know, I thought, you know, just been business advice to the prime minister, this will be relatively sort of straightforward.

38:47Cleo Watson:Oh, boy, did I call that wrong? Like, it was not easy to work out what I kind of wanted to do next. And sort of, had we known there was a pandemic coming?

38:56Helen MacNamara:There's a lot we'd have done differently. There's a lot we've done differently.

39:00Cleo Watson:But I was sort of like, you know, I didn't want to do lobbying. I was getting offered lots of interesting jobs with that. But I was so set. I had this thing of where I didn't want to go in and have to lobby my successor. That was just a thing where I did not want to do that.

39:13Helen MacNamara:Do you know, it's striking how many people have that. I do not want to meet my successor over the table. Or even worse, somebody who works for my successor over the table. The humiliation of that. You get one of those texts if you're the successor or you have to send it. saying like, hi, mate, can I have a chat? And you think, oh, God, no, I don't want to do this.

39:31Cleo Watson:But it's quite interesting. So what I did next, he says modestly. But I basically went off to study at Stanford for a couple of months and getting away from Westminster was like brilliant for me, like really needed to do that. And we had two months out there and my wife's condition on taking our new baby out there was that we rent a camper van at the end of this trip. And so we had this sort of week without any mobile phone signal or anything. What that week was, though, was the first week of March 2020. And so we had not realized quite. We knew COVID was a thing at the end of February, but we had not realized how much it ramped up.

40:07Cleo Watson:And so we went home and my wife's a doctor. So she was like, yeah, I've got to go back to work. And I became a stay at home dad. So I'd gone from Downing Street to diapers and was with this kind of situation with this five month old where we couldn't see anyone too young to kind of watch TV. So all we did was listen to audio, basically. And we sort of had breakfast with the Today programme, lunch with World at One, dinner with... Einstein baby. Exactly. And basically during this, I thought, is there something I can do to help tackle the unemployment crisis coming up? And I thought back to a conversation I used to have at Number 10 quite regularly, which was I would get the phone call from Debenhams or Wilkinsons in the morning saying, we're about to go into administration, going to make 10 ,000 people redundant.

40:53Cleo Watson:them. And I would go in and tell the PM this great news at the 8 a.m. meeting to kick it off. And she would say, Jimmy, all you ever tell me about is job losses. But when we look at the employment stats at the time, we're at record high levels of employment. So where are all these jobs coming from? And I was like, well, yeah, it's entrepreneurs creating one or two jobs a day, but that never gets written up into a jobs announcement. So that was the start of Jimmy's Jobs of the Future, was I'm going to interview entrepreneurs about where they're creating jobs. And that was the sort of essence of where it started.

41:22Cleo Watson:I thought I might find my next job, but I didn't.

41:25Helen MacNamara:Let's say you were called up by Andy Burnham and you've got 30 seconds to say, you've talked about growth in every postcode. If you're really serious about this, and to him and his new business advisor, this is what you should do, guys.

41:40Cleo Watson:Yes. Well, I would keep the sort of economic teams in place, the business and the science teams generally. I think there are, I think Peter Carl and Liz Kendall have done a good job. And I think Kanishka is excellent as an AI minister, and they are making real progress in that area, because AI is going to be the thing that makes a big difference over the next few years. And the British government is actually doing a pretty good job. They've got some good people in there, and they are doing good work. And I just would not meddle with that, right? Like, it's not an issue at the moment, which is at the forefront of the public's minds necessarily, but a lot of good work is going on there.

42:16Cleo Watson:So I would keep that team together and keep the plans in place. But it's going to be fascinating to see what they do, because Manchester has had an amazing business and growth story over the last decade. And actually, kind of a lot of the planks laid by Howard Bernstein and George Osborne sort of 10, 15 years ago. So, you know, there is real hope on that if they can bring more of that into every postcode, which I do think is a line that they might regret at some stage.

42:44Helen MacNamara:You've met or interviewed some of the top names in politics and business, Tony Blair, Tim Cook, who, if you could have anyone in charge of running the UK, in your experience, who would it be and why?

42:56Cleo Watson:Well, my other piece of advice would be to read the Tony Blair book on leadership. And I read that book. And I just thought, gosh, this is a real manual for how to do government far better than his kind of autobiography that he did, like immediately post Downing Street. All those kind of political autobiographies I don't think teach you that much. It's often sort of...

43:16Helen MacNamara:They usually teach you the guy thinks the guy did a good job.

43:18Cleo Watson:Exactly. And so, but reading that book from Blair kind of, what, 20 years on from when he left office is really useful and has got a lot in there. And he's advised leaders all around the world now and so on. So I think that's really good. I'm not sure he'd be quite right to come back running the country necessarily, Although you look at America like he's still a spring chicken almost. But that's what's so ridiculous, right?

43:42Helen MacNamara:Everywhere else has prime ministers a bit older and we kind of junk ours quite young.

43:46Cleo Watson:Yeah, I wonder whether that will change. That's one of the things I wonder might change in the next couple of decades, whether partly as you get an older population as well, whether our sort of wanting young politicians, et cetera, will change.

44:00Helen MacNamara:I mean, we might get them young, but we age them pretty hard. thanks for listening to this episode of lessons from number 10 remember to follow the show on your podcast player of choice and review us give us five star why not and you can find jimmy's podcast which is excellent and we highly recommend on all podcast players and also on youtube just search for jimmy's jobs of the future and there'll also be links in the show's notes and do please continue to email us with your feedback and questions we absolutely love them we are in the room at independent.co.uk. If you're listening on Spotify, of course, you can leave little bitchy comments underneath.

44:34Helen MacNamara:We love reading those as well. And you can keep up with the best bits of the pod on Instagram at intheroom.pod. This podcast is part of the Independent Podcast Network and produced in association with Next Chapter Studios. The executive producer is Rod Ardahali and the producer is Sam Durham. A special mention to our content editor, Maya Anoushka, our video editor, Vali Raza, and our videographer, Neil Parsons. Thanks for listening and see you next time for more lessons from number 10.