Rt Hon Gordon Brown

0:00This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human You're listening to Ruthie's Table 4 in collaboration with me and Em intelligent style for busy women Thinking about Gordon Brown I remember a great prime minister who fought for justice led with deep values of trust and truth and fairness embraced culture by supported creatives in the arts and much much more in recent years he's focused his work tackling the challenges of poverty through multibank, a crucial and innovative initiative he founded. Tonight we're going to have a dinner at our home celebrating him, all he has done and all he is doing. But before we sit down, he and I are going to talk together about food and memories, food and family, food and activism.

0:49It's a real privilege to be with you. No. And I'm looking forward to this discussion. You are the expert on food, nutrition, everything. What it is about food is that it's a clue to a memory, I think. We're going to ask you to read a recipe for asparagus frittata. And so you can, if you would like to read this. I'm a big supporter of asparagus. Oh, you like asparagus, do you? Should we do this together? Okay, so this recipe is for an asparagus. Here we go. Frittata. Frittata. Ingredients, I'll start. Eight large free-range eggs, and I love eggs, so this is great. Yeah, you love eggs. And eight ounces of thin asparagus.

1:26Yeah, you know, because you have different ones, don't we? Yeah, I love asparagus, and it's in season sometimes. Do you grow them anywhere near you? No, we don't grow them, but we buy them. You buy them, good, okay. No, you go, because it's now to the Parmesan. Two ounces of freshly grated Parmesan. And one small bunch of mint, finely chopped, with two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. We only have extra virgin olive oil. Sounds good. Okay, we go to Italy. Blanch the asparagus, bring a pot of water to the boil, Add the asparagus and blanch until just tender. Drain and pat dry. And then in a large bowl, lightly beat the eggs.

2:01I think I could do that. You could do that. Add the parmesan and chopped mint, reserving a small amount of each for the topping. Season. Yeah. Right. And I think I might have to get your advice to cook the frittata. Okay. We could do that together. Yeah. Okay. Cook the frittata in an 8-inch open-proof frying pan. Heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the egg mixture to the pan. Then I think I could cook the eggs over low heat, loosening them at the sides with a spatula until they're almost completely set, but the center is still slightly runny. Okay, then scatter the blanched asparagus, spears evenly over the top of the frittata.

2:41Sprinkle with the remaining parmesan and mint, and then? Place the frying pan under the hot grill, and you do so until the frittata is cooked through and the top is lightly golden. Nice. Slide the finished frittata onto a warm plate, cut into wedges and serve. Now, if you made it, I would be your expertise. When you grow up, because you've got food, you take it for granted and sometimes you forget. When I was born, my mother told me later that I had to go back into hospital because I couldn't take food and I was not able to digest it. So I had spent weeks in hospital when I was born, but I'd taken food for granted.

3:28And then the food I got, suddenly my mother was in hospital and I was, I think, 15 then. And she was really very ill for more than a year. And my father had to make the food. And the only food he could make was omelette with eggs. but because of the war years I don't know how it happened he made omelette with eggs and flour flour flour with the eggs he said put in the flour in the beginning yeah to make the thing go further and this was obviously something that had happened because of the rationing during the war and so he made omelette so we had omelette every day the one thing it relieved me of was the porridge that I hated that my mother used to insist that I had But for a year, I was sort of very aware about my motherhood.

4:21I'd just taken it all for granted. And my father made the food. And then I go to university. So I actually went to university when I was 16. I arrived in Edinburgh at university, and I'd had this rugby injury. I'd been playing rugby, and I was a sportsman. The week I arrived at university, I was taken into hospital for retinal detachments of my eye, having played rugby and had this injury. I've been concussed playing rugby. And I ended up, of course, learning about hospital food. Oh, yeah. So it would either have been refectory food at university or hospital food. I was actually blinded for a few weeks.

4:58And I had these operations almost every year for a few years because of what had happened with this injury. And I got to know hospital food. And so I started to realize the benefits of good food. Yeah, yeah. I tell you about this hospital. So it's so fascinating. At 8 o 'clock every evening, a trolley came around. I was very young. I was only 16, and then I was in at 17. One of these old Victorian wards. Almost every other patient was cataract patient. It took about seven days to cure a cataract these days. Instead of being in and out. Go in and come out the same day. So it was all these old men, really, because a men's ward, and me, the young person.

5:34But at 8 o 'clock every evening, a trolley came around, and they offered you drinks. Alcoholic drinks? Alcoholic drinks. And I was 16, and you would be offered Guinness, you'd be offered wine, you'd be offered lager, and you could take what you wanted. And this is my introduction into alcohol. I knew the health service was free, but free beer, you know? And so the food wasn't so good, but the drink was quite enticing. So that's my early years. When you couldn't see, did you listen to music? I did listen to it. There was a hospital radio station, funnily enough, and I did listen to music. And this is, you know, the time of the Beatles.

6:18This is 1967, 1968, 1969. So you've got all this brilliant British music. And, of course, you're lying blinded. You had to lie flat to let the retina set in place. Very uncomfortable. You had to sense the food rather than see it. Yeah. How did you deal with time? Did people come and talk to you? How did you have the day? Interestingly, it's all night digitalized, but there was a talking book service. And there was a friend of mine who was a history lecturer, and I was studying history. And he gave me these talking books, but they're very difficult because there were sort of tapes, like the old tape recorders.

6:55Thinking about the early days when you were talking about your father cooking for you, what was your house like? Do you remember the kitchen? Yeah, I remember the kitchen. Did they have money? Did they have money to buy good ingredients? No, not much money. My father was a minister of the church, so if you were a minister, the house was provided. They were usually big houses, usually pretty cold. But my mother insisted that we always had to eat porridge. For breakfast, not certainly just for breakfast. For breakfast. In fact, my grandfather, because they were relatively poor, they ate porridge, breakfast, lunch, and evening.

7:32But somehow, it was too much for me. and the minute I could stop eating porridge, I'd never eaten it again. Did they have people over there? Never again. The father was minster. Did they have people come for lunches or dinners? Oh, yeah. Were they entertained? They did a bit, but we had people begging because, I mean, there was a lot of poverty at that time. I got into trouble with my parents because they'd gone out, and I don't know what age I was, 12, 13, 14, and I was in the house on my own, and this guy comes to the door, and he said he didn't have any money and didn't have any food, and I said, well, come in, and I took him into the kitchen and I said just take what you want my parents came back he was the town's best known burglar oh I see he was a housebreaker and I didn't bite it I mean he probably didn't take it he got some food he got some food but yeah but he disappeared pretty quickly but what was the poverty of food and the poverty of the people there were they unemployed but there's no industry was there farms the town I was grew up in was a mining town in Scotland and it was linoleum it was a textile town so linoleum the the town almost had the world market linoleum and that was when that was the floor covering that was in vogue and then suddenly it was out of vogue and it was fitted carpets and so linoleum sort of died a bit of a death but there was uh thousands employed in the linoleum industry and in mining and there was quite a lot of poverty as a result of the unemployment that then happened as these industries fell.

9:04And then we lived by the sea and we had seawalls because we were on the 4th, which was looking out on the continent of Europe. But the seawalls were not strong enough. So every January, there was always flooding. And so my father and I, I just remember going down to meet the families and their houses were flooded, but they weren't properly insured. And so that was, again, another cause of poverty. There was no social, what year was this? This was 1960s. So there was social. 1950s, 60s. I saw poverty then that I didn't think I'd see again. And unfortunately, in the last 10 years, in the last 10 years, I've seen it rise again.

9:43So in the town I was brought up in and the school I went to, I've been back there, you know, the primary school, which is, you know, and there's a lot of poverty in that area. This is why food is so important and why food banks have become as important. You know, in 2010, when we left office, there were 35 food banks. 35 food banks in Scotland? In the whole of Britain, 35 only. And now there are 2 ,600. So you've now got food banks, you've got hygiene banks, you've got clothes banks, you've got baby banks. But the first priority is that kids are properly fed. and you can see the difference in the nutritional levels of kids when they when they get to school so but food food is so so essential and the lack of food you know and as i say you know my mother did all the cooking you sort of took it for granted what did she do remember some things that she made oh well i mean we're very very traditional food what is scottish traditional You know, roast beef, steak pie is a sort of popular dish amongst people.

10:50I'm not a great lover of the sort of haggis and all that sort of stuff. You have never had haggis. Well, come to Scotland. I'm going to come to Scotland. Do you buy it already prepared and then you cook it? There are restaurants that specialize in that kind of Scottish. But fishing communities. So there's a lot of fishing communities in Scotland. and although the fishing is not as strong in terms of its output and its catches as it used to be, Scottish people love fish. Fish and chips is a huge thing in Scotland. The most famous fish and chips restaurant that wins all the awards for being the best British restaurant is in Fife, very near where we stay.

11:30And people queuing outside for fish and chips. It's incredible. Because you're on the sea. We have our fish. We get scallops and langoustines from Aberdeen. Yes, yes. But when they come down on the train, I always have this image of two langoustines sitting together chatting about their journey to the river cafe. I've always wanted to go. Did you ever fish yourself? We tried to fish. When I was young, my mother came from the north of Scotland and we used to go and visit my uncle and aunt and so on. And they taught us how to fish. But I was never terribly successful at catching. You've got to have great patience.

12:04Yeah, you do. Yeah, I thought it was probably quite a good Zen thing. My mother's, my cousin actually trained as a chef. Are they? They're quite a talented family because one was trained as a chef, another was a music teacher, so they're different talents. Music and food, yeah. And they didn't really rub off on me because I'm not a musician, I'm not good at food. No, you're only the most genius economist of the century. No, no, I wish. Real file failure in terms of success. But do you know anything about your grandparents? Were they, you know, both sides? Were they come from families? I met my grandfather.

12:37I never met my grandmother. She died, sadly, of cancer quite young when he was still... He had just started as a student at St. Andrews University, so she died young. And I met my grandmother on my mother's side, but again, her father had died young, so I met my father's father and my mother's mother. Do you have memories of, like, reunions? and getting around the table. Great memories, good to say. Yeah, getting around the table is - Do you remember tables? Do you remember as a child - Tables are very important. Sit - In what way? They bring people together. People sitting around the table, they find a way of talking to each other, find a way of relating to each other.

13:19My, Sarah has always insisted, so we've obviously got two kids, and she's always insisted that one meal a day, if they're at home, we're all sitting around the same table. And that's a really good thing. It is good. I actually went to see Ted Kennedy in Cape, I met him a few times in Hyannis. And what was amazing about Ted Kennedy is he always had these dinners sat around the table. And it must have been what his father had insisted on. And Ted always started a conversation. A group conversation. And always had a, it was really a political discussion in the end. So I arrived quite innocently. And of course Ted, he's blasting away against the Iraq war.

13:59you know so yeah were you in government at the time when you went to see him we were in government and I wasn't I wasn't that keen on the Iraq war as you know but Ted was a great guy so you know this idea of sitting around a table talking to people over food one meal a day did your parents do it though yes did you when you were Sunday do you have one brother I've got an older brother and a younger brother right and they are and very close to them I was with them both last week and what were meal times like around the table and the brown household I was the quiet one actually. My older brother was far more assertive and actually the first charity I was involved in when I was 10 and 11, it was my brother who got me into, my older brother, was actually the Freedom From Hunger campaign which was run by Oxfam.

14:46What year would that have been? The early 1960s and so my brother was very innovative. He led me, I was his follower and he started a local newspaper to raise money for freedom from hunger and he ran a food shop so my mother was baking what was called tablet you know and selling this and all sorts of provisions what was tablet it's a sort of sugary sort of uh something you eat yeah yeah yeah and they called it a tuck shop a tuck shop yeah and so they raised the money we raised the money for for charity through this, but it was for the Freedom for Hunger campaign. And there was a local newspaper, and there was a magazine, and then there was this fundraising, and then you went door to door to sell the newspaper.

15:31But that's the first time that I sort of realized that I'd been taking food for granted, you know, and other people didn't have it. And one of the things in politics, of course, is you've got to go to so many dinners. Yes. And, you know, you go around the country, and you're speaking at dinners and all that sort of thing. I had this sort of amazing experience when I just started as a member of parliament and I was invited to speak to this group of pensioners elderly pensioners and I can remember the place this is 30 40 years ago And I arrived there and I've rushed in and I said to the chairman How long do you want me to speak?

16:07You know just whispered in how long do you want me to speak and he said 45 minutes? So I stand up and they talk about pensions. There's nothing that is not said about pensions I've spoken about the international comparisons what's happened in the last hundred years and I sort of sat down after about 40 minutes to what you might call less than good applause and the chairman then stands up and says I'm sorry he said we're running out of time the food is now cold he said the band you're gonna have to cut your repertoire and there's no time for more speakers I thought you said 45 minutes 4 to 5 he'd whispered it and I'd got it wrong so everybody there was getting cold food as a result of my inability I've never forgotten that because it's a good lesson you've got to check

17:12When I interviewed Tony Blair, we did a podcast, and he was talking about Downing Street and food. And he was saying that when you were working in the morning and you had to have lunch, somebody would go down and get sandwiches and bring them back, that there wasn't a chef or cook in Downing Street to prepare food, except if there was an occasion. I find that kind of shocking. There was a canteen. Yeah. And they actually, a day or two after I left Downing Street in 2010, I got a bill for£800, I remember it well, for breakfast. You'd go down to work, and I'd get up quite early. You'd go down to work, and maybe about 8 o 'clock, you'd ask for breakfast.

17:58Someone would get down and get some breakfast at the cantina. I didn't know what was happening. I should have paid whatever it was. But anyway, the day I left Downing Street, someone had obviously decided to send me a bill. So I got a bill for 800 pounds for breakfast. And then a day later, I got a bill for 5 ,000 pounds for books. And I said, all right, I'm happy to pay for the breakfast, because I'd had the breakfast. But the books, I said, I don't have the books. They're in the Downing Street Library. They said, but you ordered the books when you... I said, but we had to read them to do our speeches, and you've got the books.

18:29Charge me for the books that I have in my possession. So that was my experience. I got a bill for food and a bill for books. I think it's culture. I'm sure at the Elysee Palace, Mr. Macron does not have to worry about breakfast or lunch. I think Downing Street's got an official, if I remember right, they've got an official list of caterers that are approved caterers, mainly for security reasons. And that's how it works. But, you know, if you invited people to checkers, you paid for that. And you paid for anybody who was a guest. so no I mean look when you go into Downing Street and it must have happened to Keir Starmer a few months ago someone comes to you from the civil service and says Downing Street is in need of repair it needs to be refurbished can you approve this plan because it needs all this redecoration refurbishment and you know it's a very old building as you know as soon as you know and then you say well you know how's it how long is it going to take and the guy says well you'll have to be out of downing street for at least five years five years and no prime minister's going to agree to that it's not like the east wing of the white house you're even going to be prime minister this trust you know she'd agreed to it you know she was only there for a few days but the idea that you come in as a prime minister and the minute you're in you're advised by the civil service that you've got to leave for five years and you don't know if you'll ever be back and in my case it wouldn't i wouldn't have been back and you have to move to another building so that's why you know the the sort of refurbishment of dining street is you know is never really going to happen do you remember the any fantastic state dinners at buckingham palace or i was buckingham palace when president obama was there i was at uh windsor castle when president um uh Sarkozy was there.

20:22Yeah, these are incredible events. And I think there was one for President Trump only a few weeks ago. And obviously they're very well organized and very well done. But Downing Street doesn't have that facility. When we went to the G20 in 2009 in Downing Street, we did have to organize a dinner because we had all the people from the leaders there. So we had a dinner for them. All I remember from this is Prime Minister Berlusconi was there. So we have the dinner. We have a discussion on the future of the world economy. And I'm telling them we've got a plan. We can do something about it. And don't be pessimistic.

21:05And I reminded them that Churchill had complained in the 1930s that all the politicians had been resolved to be a resolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, and all-powerful for impotence. Great quote. and so we had the dinner and then we went down and all I remember is is someone telling me afterwards that Prime Minister Berlusconi was down Naomi Campbell was there and he went up and said very nice to meet you can I have your telephone number now you only might be able to confirm that but you remember any of the was it did you think when you were going to France oh that's great because we're going to have a fantastic meal going to Italy do you like it do you ever go to Italy Italy is a wonderful place and we've spent some great time in Florence.

21:50I took my son round Venice and we've stayed in Florence and in other parts of Italy. And of course, Italian food, which you specialize in, is absolutely brilliant. And I do like it. And I've been to Italy to see Scotland playing in the World Cup. I've been to Italy for political events. I've been to Italy to the European Institute, the university in France. Did you ever go to the Vatican? I met the Pope, Pope Benedict it was when I was there. And he kindly invited me to bring not just Sarah but our two boys. And he was very kind to them. And I persuaded them both to wear ties for that day. No, I persuaded them to wear shirts.

22:39I think one of them refused to wear a tie. which made them to wear a shirt at least so it's no the Vatican is quite a place it's a really interesting place because I think I can tell this story now the day that I met the Pope to discuss our global health initiative which was about nutrition as well as about health we'd held a conference to launch a new initiative in Rome and the Pope invited us all in to the Vatican and we were to meet him. And I was, in a sense, the leader of the delegation, but also Queen Rainier of Jordan, very nice and a person who's very much involved in the international development work.

23:22She was also one of the leaders of the delegation. And we arrived at the entrance of the room where we were going to meet the Pope and she hadn't appeared. And I said, where is Queen Rainier? and my friend, the minister, Sriti Vidira, whom you may know, Baroness Vidira, she was there and the officials of the Vatican kept saying, you know, pushing Sriti forward as if she was the leader of the group. And what had happened was the officials at the Vatican had thought Queen Rania was Sriti Vidira and Sriti Vidira was Queen Rania. And Queen Rania had been put into a room as if she was an official and not the Queen.

24:00You couldn't find her. We eventually found her. but we had an audience with the Pope. So Vatican's an amazing place, as you know, and it was a very interesting event. But we didn't eat there, I can say. Yeah, yeah. Do you ever think about food when you wake up in the morning? What am I going to eat today? Everybody's different on that. Yeah, exactly. For me, I work best in the morning. You know, sometimes I do book festivals and you think you're going to get questions about what your political views are, And suddenly someone says, when is the best time that you write? And some people say the evening, don't they?

24:40I remember Roy Jenkins telling me that when he wrote his books, and he wrote very good books, he said, you know, I sit down at 6, 7 o 'clock in the evening with a bottle of wine. I drink it and I start writing. And gradually I'm rather inebriated, but I'm still writing. Whereas I can only work best in the morning. In the morning. What time do you wake up? Oh, 5 o 'clock. Do you? And so breakfast is the most important meal for me because by sort of 8 o 'clock you're quite hungry. And so I enjoy breakfast. Do you make it yourself? I do make breakfast myself, but usually poached eggs, sometimes smoked salmon, sometimes tomatoes, and sometimes toast.

25:22And then lunch? Lunch, I don't take much for lunch, often soup. But in Scotland, all my father's family come from a farming background, And I think they're all used to getting up really early and working from five, six o 'clock. And I think it just follows on generation to generation. Are you writing a book now? I'm working on something about really what's happening to the world order and why every pillar of the world order, the rule of law, democracy, human rights, multilateral cooperation, humanitarian aid, environmental stewardship, all these pillars that have been built up to support a sort of rules-based world order that was delivering, for example, progress on sustainable development goals and everything else, why that's been crumbling over the last few years and what we can actually do about it.

26:15And what we found, we've done this study of opinion around the world, and it's really interesting. We found that the public, when they're talking about international cooperation, take a far more common sense view about the need for it than some of our politicians. So you've got America first, India first, China first, Russia first, you know, my country first and only, in some cases, my tribe only. But people are far more sensible. They understand that we need to cooperate with each other. So it's interesting to look at... Why do they vote for governments that don't promise that? Because I think what's happening is that people want change.

26:51And I think they turn to whoever offers them change. And so they try one group and then they try another group and then they try another group. And I think, you know, we have got to deliver the kind of change that people want. And I think that's what I think most governments are realizing, that they're being marked down because people want change. Tell me about multibank. Multibank is about change, really, because it's about how we can build a better crisis support system for people. When you think of it, every family has problems and crises and emergencies. So you can have a death in the family, you can have a redundancy, you can have a breakup of the family, you can have cancer in the family.

27:34All these things can go wrong. The question is, do we have a support system for people when things go wrong? So food banks have come into existence because it's the only way that people can actually find the means of getting food. So you've got mothers at the end of a back-breaking work, and it could be nurses and teachers as well as some of the lowest paid workers who cannot make ends meet. And so they queue up at food banks to get what they need. But what we discovered was that people were missing out not just on food. In fact, they might actually find the money to buy some food. but they weren't buying sort of shampoo, soap, toothpaste, you know, cleaning materials, bedding and then you had this whole question of clothes, you have this whole question of baby clothes and baby goods and so we thought that in addition to there being a food bank, we'd side by side, we'd have what we call a multi-bank so you've got a food bank, clothes bank, bedding bank, furnishings bank, all rolled into one so we've given out about as a group of people with I think about 12 million goods worth about 100 million pounds over the last year or two and we're going up to 20 million goods as soon as possible.

28:53The reason that this is working and this is relevant to food is that there is so much waste and if there is goods that are being destroyed or being thrown away or incinerated but they are still useful goods that could be used by other people and that includes the waste of food but it also includes other goods that are perfectly usable but are either out of fashion or a company's gone bust or something we get these goods and it is amazing that small things can make a big difference when we opened a multi-bank in Wigan on the day we opened a father came in and he said take my son I can't keep him anymore I can't afford him and walked out and the son was in tears and it was just so sad but we managed to get the son this is a social worker and we got him with his grand 16 16 he was you know and he was in a flood of tears um but we managed to do something to help a few weeks ago a woman came pushing her baby in a trolley she did not have a pram and we were able to get her a pram.

30:01You've got kids and there's only one pair of football boots in the family and there's two kids and they've got to take it week in week out to go to training so we can provide that. When we opened in Wales a girl came to us and she had never had anything other than secondhand goods in her life and she was being humiliated at school because she didn't have trainers but we were able to get her training. So small things can make a difference but basically the scale of poverty for people on very low incomes in our country is a real social problem food banks have led the way food banks have led the way i think i think to be fair all those great people who've started local food banks this is a local movement where people have come and offered to start their own food bank in their own area and we've got two or three in the constituency do you go to them do you yes yes because the food banks are usually run by volunteers it's difficult to have sort of ready-made food.

30:59But there is a very good project in London, Food for Good, which is run by Karen Mattinson. And she is teaching people how to cook. And she's running the charity that is not only providing people with meals but teaching people how to cook meals and use food to best effect. And she's published a recipe book, actually. But in this book, it's actually for tomato soup. I love tomato soup, and so tomatoes with all sorts of ingredients in it, but the person who was doing the book decided that they would have to add onions to it to make it more edible and more attractive. So I was given a lecture about how I could have done a bit better.