(EXCLUSIVE) Boris Johnson: "They Were Looking at Engineering The Virus" And The Government Tried To Bribe Me!

25:37Um, no, I, I mean, I, I think that, I mean, I wish you were through in some ways, but I don't, I, because most of your most viewed videos on YouTube, are you tackling a small child while they're being. No, by the way, by the way, he might, he, he would, I reckon he could be much older than he looked. That, that, that, that, that, that, the guy in Japan. The kid you tackled with the kid in Japan, the one I said in October, they're all comedy videos. Yeah, he, he, he, anyway. Eaton, it's pretty crazy to, who went to eaton at 13 years old. It's the crazy thing for me is that approximately 20 of the 57 individuals who have served as prime minister went to eaton, which is roughly 35 % of the UK prime ministers were educated at eaten roughly.

26:19Yeah. This, for me, when I read that, I go, something's broken here because for one school to contribute so many of the most powerful people in, in the land, feels like a little bit of, like someone's got their hands on the scale, or there's some kind of. That's why you need to read leveling, read, read the book, because the book contains this of the whole theme of the book, right? Not the whole theme of the book. It's one of the major themes of the book is about leveling up. Yeah. And if you remember what I say about, I don't know whether you, you got through that bit, but I, so I went there on scholarship, it was fantastic.

26:53I was very lucky. I was, I was paid for by the, by Henry VI, or the legacy of Henry VI. And I remember feeling this incredible sense of amazement that there were kids from some of the most famous, illustrious families in, in Britain, who, plainly, didn't have, you know, much intellectual interest, academic, you know, spark in them. And, and kids who come from backgrounds all over the country, who were incredible. And I, my, my insight at school, very, very, very young was, there's, there's a fundamental problem, which is that there is ambition, an energy and genius and talent, probably completely evenly distributed throughout the UK population.

27:53And opportunity is not. Yeah. And that is the problem. And that is the basic formula country. And this country has more potential, arguably than any other major European economy, because it's so balanced. And if you look at the, the, the school's like my, the, the, the southeast in the UK economy, it's actually unlike France, Germany, Italy, Holland, it's also totally unlike the United States. And so, I decided very early on that, that there was massive, massive wasted potential. And so one of the things, so when I became Merriblund, one of my biggest projects was really, the biggest thing we did was really all about trying to lift the, the, the burrows that people said were locked in a permanent cycle of disadvantage.

28:53And, and you know, you know, I mean, the inner, the inner donut of London, Hackney, where, you know, all that, and it was total rubbish, total rubbish. And you can, you can change people's aspirations, but you can then also change the culture of achievement. And, and I saw it happen in London. And I was only mayor for eight years, but in that period, you really did see the city change in, you know, quite a significant way. And I believe very, very strongly that that is fundamentally what needs to happen in the whole of the UK. And, and I think that this is the job of policy. I don't care whether they're labor or conservative or whoever.

29:39I think that that is, that is what we need to be doing. And I think there are very simple ingredients that the public does not, there's a limit to what politicians can do. But there are some simple things that politicians need to be doing to make that happen. Has the conservative government done well enough at leveling up the whole of the UK over the last decade? Obviously not, because it's not happening far, it is happening. Leveling up is happening. But if you look at this, it's not very fast enough. And, you know, so, you know, I was proud of doing things like running out gigabit broadband from, you know, 70 % to almost 69 % of households in in three years, which is not bad going on.

30:24That's proud of all the infrastructure stuff we were, we were doing. I think it's a mistake to stop that infrastructure is crucial for leveling up. Transport infrastructure is a great equalizer of opportunity. So things like HS2 Northern Powerhouse Rail, we should be going on with those in, in my view. And, you know, whatever my, my defects as a politician, I think one thing I was good at was getting a lot of stuff done fast and driving and driving project projects. But the problem is, it was to, you know, back to your question. That youthful experience was, because I was also primary schooled in London.

31:17And I really, really decided that this was, because I think our country has this problem worse than most other kind, most comparable countries. But if you think of, if you think of how strong the UK economy already is, and imagine what we could achieve if we leveled up. Right. Do you know this, this stat around eaten that 20 out of the 57 individuals who served as prime minister came from that? Isn't that just the clearest example of the fact that it is the people that are coming into politics, but also generally the people that are getting to the top in society are starting with an unfair advantage to some degree.

31:58I, well, I think what it shows is that, I mean, you could probably point to cultures like France or wherever where, you know, a lot of the country is run by the people from the, the great schools. But yeah, I mean, fundamentally, yes. So I think that the, so it's a great, great choice for, for anybody who's interested in public policy is, well, OK, this is a, this is clearly, clearly a problem. It's clearly wrong. It's clearly imbalanced. What do you do? Do you set out to launch a kind of cultural assault? Paul Pots style on the successful institutions? Or do you say actually what we're going to do is try to spread opportunities?

32:54So it's more like America. And if you look at America. The growth rates of spectacularly outperformed European growth rates. There's a different sense. People have a different sense of what they can do. And we need to have a, we need to have a culture in the UK where people don't feel prisoners of their geography of their background. That's certainly as the cases in at the moment in the UK. It's too much the case. I mean, it's less than it was. I went under cover. I went undercover in a school in Liverpool. That was very poorly ranked on the off -stead rankings. And I remember being in that school and just thinking, how on earth are these kids going to have a chance at?

33:35Well, they're not going to have a chance if their teachers tell them that they're never going to get into a Russell root university and they get what I observed when I was there was I observed one teacher running from one classroom to the next classroom. This was under a Tory government trying to teach two classes at the same time. And I remember sitting down with her because I, because I got like that at school, then I was on expel from school. So I had a bit of my prejudices about school. I thought teachers were the problem. And what I came to learn from speaking to the headmaster of the school was that this is effectively run like a business.

34:02And the amount of students that choose that school every year determines how much money the school is given by the conservative government. And the amount of the parents choose schools based on the league table and the league table is determined by grades. So really, if you think about the structure here, the reason why they're driving kids like me to do subjects, which I absolutely hated when I was really interested in business, was because if they don't get me to get well, they used to seize or whatever non -senses and subjects. They rank poorly in the league table. Less parents choose the school.

34:34They get less money from the government and it's just time with spiral. And because the school was running businesses in the school. And I was spending so much time in my exclusion unit because I was falling asleep in classrooms. It turns out I had ADHD. I wasn't interested in these things, but I was obsessed in these things. The system is designed to just sort of spread bet you across multiple subjects and you're a failure if you're not good at that. But going back to the economics of the school, I watched this teacher run from one classroom to the other teaching two classrooms at the same time.

35:13And she told me that because less students had chosen that school this year, she was having to pay for the footballs and the pencils in her classroom. This school, I observed the quality of education. With all due respect, they did the best with what they had. But oh my god, it doesn't compare. Doesn't compare to a lot of the other schools that I've observed. And I thought, God, these children in this school are starting out life with a significant disadvantage. And much of that is just down to the funding situation. They don't have the teachers. The teachers are dropping like flights because they're getting sick because they're understaffed.

35:48And I just thought that's such a, if we think about, you know, what's the furthest upstream thing we can do to give people a fair shaken life so that they can become a prime minister or CEO or whatever they want to be. It starts there. It starts with education and just giving everyone the same sort of a quality of opportunity. But right now, and especially under the sort of last 10, 15 years of government. Well, I think I probably ought to resist some of that because, yeah, I mean, I think teaching is incredible. I tried to be a teacher myself. It's unbelievably difficult and demanding job. And I'm hugely admire teachers.

36:26When I came in in 2019, we put a lot of money into the education budgets and the major school teachers will be paid. New teachers are starting to release 30 ,000 pounds and a lot of money into further education. And actually, if you look at that period of the conservative administration, I think most family people say, actually, UK went up the peas or rankings for literacy and numeracy. Most people actually would say that education was one of the things where things did get better. And I think they're driving out of the whole academy program. I mean, not remotely denying what you say about the teacher.

37:19The teachers were being totally run ragged. And, you know, they need the maximum possible support. But if you look at the data, schools did get appreciably better in this country during that period. Now, what I wanted to do was really turbocharge that and give not just school children, but also kids who left school at 16. And I think the types of skills that they were going to need to compete and to make sure that business fell that they had in the schools, in the FE colleges, in wherever it was, they had the talent that they needed to invest in that area. Because that's ultimately what it's all about.

38:09It's about having the confidence that the state is doing enough to deliver private sector investment. That is ultimately what will transform the neighborhood. And you get, instead of getting the vicious cycle of decline that you taught about, you'll get a positive feedback loop. And parents want to move that, want to send their kids to the school. At the school, we get a good reputation. And so things will turn around. As they did in London, look at London schools. You know, I can't, I can't comment on the school you mentioned in Liverpool, but London schools really, really change a lot. And with the leveling up thing, one of the easiest ways to level up without building the train line would just be to improve the quality of education in these.

39:04I think if you look at what the conservatives did, they really focused on that. And they focused on the curriculum, they focused on standards, they focused on quality. And I think it was very important because, you know, I mean, it's all, it's very, very important to fund schools properly. But, you know, you shouldn't underestimate what a great teacher can achieve and the difference that they can make. And, you know, if you emphasize quality and you emphasize attainment and you focus on that, that's why I think it's, I was slightly worried about what's happening now with, with off -stead. I mean, I can understand why people don't like one word off -stead, gradings, but parents need to know whether a school is going to deliver.

39:57You went to Oxford University, then you had a job as a management consultant, which lasted only a week on here. I wasn't really cut out for the moment because I was asked, you know. You then become a journalist, you become a journalist for the next couple of years, you then appear on how I got news for you. Is it, is it, no, is it not a faded from the memory? It's slightly, it's slightly faded. It's on a great show, but it's still slightly fading. You were then editing a TV and his lobbyist, and, and, you were in the house of cons. Then eventually you run for London mayor. Well, you, did you expect to win the London mayor's ship?

40:31Well, you see, this is the, the, what you, I hadn't got the faintest idea. I mean, it seemed, the thing was that I'd actually been quite an admirer of Ketlinney's son in the old days. And I thought that he had some, some, or bold and original ideas for London. I mean, I thought he was good on the environment, he's good on air quality, he was good on, on the, I thought, there were some, some, some good things that he, that he did. But he was clear that after eight years, you know, you started getting a bit ragged. Did you, did you think you would win? I suppose I must have done, I suppose I must have thought it was a good chance.

41:03It was, it was, it was a pretty exhausting campaign. Yeah, but, if you asked me if I thought I would win something, I can tell you in hindsight whether I thought I'd win, I did soccer a last year, this year. And I can tell you if I thought I was going to win. Did, did you think you were going to win when you ran? I thought there was a good -ish chance, but it wasn't obvious. I mean, I think the bookies didn't really have me as the, as the favourite for a long time. I think it then changed. I can't remember exactly, but, you know, you see, you, you make your own lot, right? I mean, I had to, I had to go and make the arguments.

41:41And I think that one of the things that Ken didn't pay enough attention to was crying. And I thought the, was a real issue that needed to be addressed. And that was the, the numbers of teenage kids being murdered. And we really, really went to that hard. And again, it was one of those things where, when I, together with a lot of other people, get malt house deputies and then Stephen Greenhouds, Paul Stephenson, the commissioner, Bernard Hogan -Hau, who, who followed him, we really, really tried to fix knife crime and gang crime. I used to literally lie awake at night worrying about it, because it was so on me, you know, every, every single casualty, having to talk to the parents, the, you know, the misery, the misery of, of their suffering.

42:36We really felt it. And we, and it was, it was a good example of democracy, because we'd pledged to fix it. And if we didn't, we had nowhere to go. One of the things I'm proud of is we cut the murder rate in London during my time by 50%. In 2016 at 52 years old, you become co -leader alongside Michael Gove of the campaign to take Britain out of the EU. When I, when I look at your premiership is a prime minister of the UK, there's three really significant moments, isn't there? That typically don't fall all in one person's role as a prime minister. You had the Brexit issues you had covered and you had the Ukraine war.

43:15Yeah. And before I, before I talk about those particular issues, in hindsight now, how do you feel about the fact that you had to contend with three generational crises and issues? But, you know, that's the job of being prime minister. But most prime ministers don't get sure, but, but, you know, in the endemic, but leaving the EU. Some of the ministers have had wars, some prime ministers have had terrible crises, sterling crises, terrible. Do you wish you got a different hand? I, I, I think actually, Do you think you still be in politics now and as prime minister, if you, if you got a different hand?

43:55No, I think there are, I think, honestly, I think there are other reasons for, for, for that. I mean, I'm, so I'm, I'm proud of, of the things that we did with, with the country. I think it was very, you know, people now say our Brexit war, actually, you know, one of the points I make in our, in our leeched, is that if you look at it, the model of national independence that we got was crucial. So full, full freedom to do what we wanted in legislation and regulation. That was actually crucial when it came to that pandemic, because we were able to vaccinate faster than any other European country, a much faster.

44:32I mean, did you think you were going to win the Brexit vote? Um, I, honestly, when I was outside London, yes, when I was inside London, no. So whenever I traveled around the country, I thought, my God, people are going to vote, when I got back into the metropolis. It felt very different. So if you had to put your house on it, remain or leave in terms of the probability of the outcome, what you, you're predicted outcome, which one would you have voted on? Well, if the polls were, were basically more for, remain them for leave. Um, but I sort of thought that our voters were more motivated. So I hoped that they would come out.

45:18I hoped that they would. That I was sure, I mean, I mean, but it did by our own scale, no one had foreseen. I mean, because we had 17 .4 million people voted, Lee, which was the biggest number of voted for any proposition in history. And, um, but you know, there were plenty of times when I, you know, you could be in a, in a, I was a centa -and -res university in Scotland for my daughter's graduation day. And you really wouldn't have thought that we were going to leave talking to those people there. So, you know, it, it, it, it, it depended. It's not interesting when I was reading your book, but also when I was reading some of your previous writings, you seemed really conflicted on which way to go, leave or remain.

46:04Right up until you wrote your sort of first announcement piece that you were supporting, leave. You seem to be really, really conflicted. The reasons for, for, for not leaving were it seemed to me to be more to do with Britain's duty to the rest of Europe, our need to be good partners, our need not to be negative, to be friendly. I, that, that was those were things that worried me. People, the positive reasons for leaving people point at this letter, which was unpublished, you know the letter I'm referring to, the unpublished letter you wrote about the decision to leave or stay within the EU. Is this a, you mean the article, the unpublished article?

46:47Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where you said, here's some of the phrases from that piece, think of Britain, think of the rest of the, you think of the future, think of the desire of our children and our grandchildren to live and work in other European countries to sell things there to make friends perhaps to find partners there. I like the sound of freedom. I like the sound of us during democracy, but what are the downsides? And here we must be honest, there is the worry about Scotland about the possibility that the English only leave vote can lead to the breakup of the union, there is the Putin factor, we don't want to do anything to encourage more shirtless, vaguering from the Russian leader, not the Middle East, not anywhere.

47:19And then there is the whole geostrategic anxiety Britain is a great nation, a global force for good, it is surely a boon for the world and for Europe that she should be intimately engaged in the EU. Lastly, this is a market on our doorstep ready for future exploitation by British firms, the membership fee seems rather small for all that access. Why are we so determined to turn our back on it? Shouldn't our policy be like our policy on cake, pro having it and prohibiting it, pro Europe and pro rest of the world. So when I read that, but then I also I read the very vivid description you gave of that night when you're trying to make your decision in your book unleashed and you seemed torn.

47:57But the guy that went out and campaigned didn't seem torn. There was a there was a real lack of nuance in the campaign, but there's such a huge amount of nuance in both the moment you were making the decision and the articles you wrote about that decision. There are arguments both ways and I say it in the in the book and it's certainly true that as I said just now, the case for stay in this is I think one about not seeming to be hostile, not seeming to be detached, but I had to decide because the being in the EU isn't like just being in a club that the weather rules don't change. It's it's a project to create a United States of Europe with a single currency with a single parliament and and so on.

48:49And I thought that we weren't ever going to get the choice again, the chance again to have national democratic independence. And as I said, so I wrote the article you just quoted was a sort of pastiche of a counter argument, which I wrote for myself as an exercise after I tried. Or you written the piece to to come out and I wanted to set them side by side and to think that that's not which but we campaign wasn't nuanced. But if you read the the other article, yeah, you'll see the points that I came down in favor of and that was about having full national independence and be able to do things your own way.

49:37And the trouble with staying in the EU was it meant that we were going to become less and less democratic. And in the end, you've got to be able to as a politician, you've got to be able to answer the question, who puts you in authority over me? And how can I remove you from office? And the problem with the EU is there's no way they can answer that question. But they're not they're not democratically is there not way you can reform the relationship with the EU while being in the EU. You know, it's interesting because I think I was thinking of a football analogy as you're talking there. And right now, I'm interested in my team having a bit of struggle, right.

50:22And my friends in the group chat are saying, do you think that we should get rid of the manager? And I'm saying when you think about making a decision like that, you also have to factor in. And what you do after I who replaces the manager, so many fans will just say, sack the manager, but then the question becomes, but then what. And it was quite clear in your book that although you wanted to leave the EU, you had no idea what the plan would be there after. And in fact, but what we need to do is take back control. And so that's like fire the manager. I'm saying, but then no, it wasn't. I was just wanting to win an argument with the public about their democracy and whether they should control it or not.

51:05And I thought that ultimately we had to do that. And I think that if you look at saying, going back to the points that we were talking about earlier to you, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know your buddy's are changing like, that's who he is?

51:47So we're working on those technologies for us. example on action that you will have to because we're changing these technologies. And it's not like then drawing. zo is not always behind us. So, I'd say it like myself to say that's the way I want somebody to say, dream of trading away national sovereignty ever anything. They just don't. They never, they never, they never, in any way NATO is a bit of a pact where they've formed. The Americans have complete agemony in NATO. I mean, you know, they're silly. But they joined forces to make some greater than the parts. Yeah, but you know, there's no, the, the, the EU provides a, a body of new, and a continuously evolving body of new law, which British, the British parliament can't change.

52:44And so to get back to, so why, I mean, I'm not pretty sure it wasn't a, it wasn't a difficult decision. It was a difficult decision for the, you know, for the reasons that you, that we've gone into. But I wanted the country, our country, to be legislatively free again. And at the heart of the book, you know, you talk about the pandemic being the most difficult thing that it was very, very difficult. But, and it was very difficult to persuade the British public to, I'm very, very difficult to find ways of stopping the spread of the disease. But one thing we did better than any other European country was vaccinate.

53:22And one reason we were able to vaccinate so fast is because we had regular tree freedom of exactly the kind, I mean, there's a pretty fluid, but it's exactly the kind that I had advocated. We'll talk about that. And so, and so that for me was absolutely crucial. And then the, I just want to make sure I'm clear, because if I'm not clear moving forward, then my audience aren't going to be clear. This idea of like freedom, if we take the, the analogy of like her, of a parachute, if I cut the cords, I'm free, but I'm also in danger unless I have a paraglide awaiting to catch me. And my point here is, I understand the head, all the like the big emotional words, that free, dynamic, back control, etc.

54:07It sounds compelling to me. But as I said with the football analogy, what's the plan there after? And I think I actually don't want to, I don't want to talk about cutting the parachute, right? And cutting the cords of the, of the parachute. Actually, it was the other way around. It was because we'd come out of the EU that we were able to equip ourselves with the parachute faster than anybody else. And we were able to, to get out of the burning plane faster and to get to ground safely faster, because we'd taken back control of our, of a regulatory freedom. And that meant that by March 2021, we'd vaccinated 45 % of the adult population and of the older people.

54:54I think we've done almost 180 over 80. We've done almost 100%. And that was incredible. If you remember, we had, we had, we had, we're talking about the vaccines in the second. Early in those early days, but the two things are connected. No, no, you're up to a thousand people dying every day. And so it was incredibly important. Just on its point, we were able to give elderly and vulnerable people in the UK a protection from all kinds of disease. On this point of Brexit, though, in your book, you say you're almost sort of disconnect yourself from the fact that you, they had to be a plan associated with the decision, because you see more most angry that people would expect you to have the plan, even though you led the campaign.

55:35Yeah. So, I mean, I'm trying to make the connection between Brexit and the real world, and why Brexit delivers value. Was there a plan for leaving? So, so, but on the, in 2016, and I think what you're really saying is, what was our plan for the, the referendum outcome? So, everybody who campaign to, to leave, were we expecting to win, were we expecting to form the ex -government? Let me quote your book. This is a different promotion for your books, so you're like this. Never at any point in that campaign did we, Boris and Michael go, discuss a future, leave -based government, because we did not imagine that they would be, would have, we would have to be in charge of government.

56:15The government stated policy was to implement the referendum result. It was a result. It was a referendum not an election. We had no plans for government, no plans for negotiations because it was not our job. And in so far, as the next few days were chaotic, which they were, it is utterly infuriating that we should be blamed. It was up to the government to announce the plan to withdraw. It was up to the government to begin negotiations. So, this is, I mean, this is, this is a huge issue, because in the context of business, because we're, because we're, because we're, what, why? Yeah, because, because I think the fundamental misconception, when you, when a government decides to put something to the people in a referendum, the government is not saying, oh, you know, if it goes against our, you know, any particular position will, will disappear.

57:03But the government said they want to remain. In France, for instance, Francois Mitterrand had a referendum on, I think, I come, which I think it was the Master of Treaty, or one of the treaties that he lost the vote. And he didn't resign, he didn't disappear. Plenty of European leaders have had referendums on, on, on, on the EU. And, and they've gone against them, but they haven't vanished from the scene. And so, you know, let me put this the other way around. Imagine, imagine that Goebb and I, or the whole of the leave team, had been specifically campaigning to, in the leave vote, to form the next government and to install ourselves as the rulers of the country.

57:53People would have said, this is not about, um, this is your, your plainly, you're, you're talking, you're all your arguments are designed to advance your political careers. You're not, you're not talking about the issue of leave or remain. You're talking about a plan to take over the government. I don't, I don't, say we're, we're not politicians. I'm just, I'm just a member of the public. So I'm, I don't explain why that, I get it, that was not possible. I get it. But as a member of the public, I think if you're leading the charge for an outcome, you must have looked a couple of steps further to think about the implications and the reality of this outcome.

58:27Like you must have had, okay, but I assume that the government would have bring, would have a white paper that set, that brought, they, they were going to bring forward the options for the country in the plan to negotiate, in the plan to, in the plan to, would, to do what they said they were going to do. But the government, including your friend, David Cameron, said this is a really bad idea. He, so one would, one would take from that that the plan is not a good one, that they've looked to all the available options post leaving and there's no good options here. So if the people in charge were saying we should not leave, there is no good plan.

59:03Shouldn't we have listened to them? Well, no, because I think they were wrong. I said, as a member of public, is I see two, like two people stood at Cliff Edge and you've got one guy called David, one guy called Boris and David has said, listen, I'm taking you to the Cliff Edge because it's your right to, to make this decision, but do not jump. And this other guy called Boris is going jump. I would assume that Boris knows something about how we survive once we start falling. But to find out that Boris had no plan and thought David was going to pull out the parachute. For me, it's like, well, David Cameron didn't plan.

59:36The problem with the problem was that we then had to, we then had found ourselves, because David, Prime Minister Cameron, then disappeared from the scene immediately. As I described in the book, we then had a chaotic period where we had to work out what the hell we were going to do because it was clear that we were going to somebody was going to have to take over and lead us through it. Did David Cameron react badly when you told him, when he thought that you might be voting to leave? Because you talk about in the book he said. Yes, I did. But I mean, but yeah, I describe it in the book. What did he say?

1:00:15He said, he said, he said, I will, I said, look, I was really struggling with this because I didn't see a hug consistently, because he'd offered me. He said, if you come out and support remain, you can have a top five job in the cabinet. I couldn't work out what a top five job was. And then he said, I said, well, look, it was fine. It was very difficult because I've written lots and lots of articles that are pointing out the democratic problems of the EU. And finally, we had a chance to resolve this. I was thinking of coming out for leave. And I didn't know how to put it to him. That was the truth.

1:00:54And he said, this isn't about articles. This is about the future of the country. I said, why agree with the future of the country? But I was still thinking about the leave. And he said, well, if you, if you, if you come out for leave, he said, I will, and I, you know, apologise for using the same thing, he said, I will, I will fuck you up forever. And I thought it was quite a big, big promise to me. He said, he was going to fuck you up forever. Forever. And so I immediately went back home after I went back home after that evening. And and cycled back from the my office in in in city hall and talked to my, my family, my kids, and one of my kids said immediately, well, you know, he got no choice and you'll have to come out for leave.

1:01:36So I put that in to I put all that in really to just to show you that um there were very good arguments for. Happy acquire line. You know what's interesting in that is when I read that part in your book, those two things that I thought the first was him offering you a top five job if you followed his opinion. Is that not bribery? And is that how the jobs are dished out in the government at the moment? If you, if you do what I say, I'll give you a top two. Like if you do what I say, I'll make you health secretary or defense secretary seems like a, but it seems like from as a someone who's not in government, it seems like a really corrupt way to dish out jobs.

1:02:19Like if you if you go in with me, it wasn't clear. It wasn't clear. You've got to be fair today. It wasn't clear what job he was offering. But top five is what defense secretary, health secretary, well, I mean, I can know, you know, PMs were top five jobs. So there's what ray four remaining. It's probably you thought in the book you talk about mid potentially defense secretary. I don't know, but yes, but yeah, I mean, look, but is that a bit corrupt? Is that not like the definition of corruption? Because if I was my view, I think it's a huge mistake to do that kind of thing because there are always far more people that, you know, you end up, you know, thinking that you should be making a promise to them, there are jobs you can possibly give.

1:02:58So the best thing they say is the same thing. I've always wondered this about government and I've never understood it. Is how does someone become the head of a department when they have no prior experience in it? Like you made at Hancock Health Secretary. How did how did Margaret Fattra become Prime Minister or Secretary of Education, which had no previous experience? You tell me. I didn't tell you Blair become Prime Minister. No, the prime minister thing I understand. How did you tell you how did Tony Blair become, you know, the shadow minister when he had no experience in my mind? You tell me, do you think this is a good system?

1:03:31Well, because this is a really, really important point because I think that there is a I don't know. I do worry that it's quite hard to persuade, you know, really good administrative types to go into politics and you know, you see it the whole time. It's called Daribe's year, right? And you see it the whole time. You see loads and loads of, I think a plenty of examples of top business people who try to get it, who try to become politicians and it just doesn't seem to work. And I don't know. I mean, can I, can I have a guess? You're well, if I look at the data, I go if 35 % of them come from one school eaten and then those jobs being dished out based on if you take my opinion, I'll give you a top five job.

1:04:27I go, I understand why I could never get in, even if I was the best candidate because it's not being done based on who's the best candidate, it's being done based on like the old boys club, well, I'll do your favor. I'll, if you, well, not under, not under the label party, or you know, or or the other party, not under the, I mean, most most conservative cabinets. So just under the Tory party? No, I think under it, under any party, I think, I think that business people do for free, since I find hard to put my finger on, they don't necessarily flourish in that environment. And who flourishes? What I, what I worry about is that the only people who are really going to start doing it are people who are willing to go through a lot of, you know, public.

1:05:13I think I say, so should pass. Well, I mean, you can, well, the fact, so look, one of the interesting things that's happened recently is that social media has become very, very virulent. And I mean, I don't read myself, but I think it, it becomes very oppressive for politicians and also for journalists.

1:05:44And I think abuse, if they're not thought to be taking one line or all the other or, you know, going easy on someone, I mean, somebody who's going to interview me for this, this book. Yeah, and you look at, and she's a very, very good journalist, but you look at the stuff that she gets online about, you know, you know, her being an inquisitor of mine or whatever, and it's poorly, it's really a poorly. And I think, so I think that, and I think that it's also the same for MPs. I think that they get very, they think that if it's a choice between having a life where I can, you know, avoid this sort of stuff and, you know, having a wonderful existence doing something else or putting myself through this.

1:06:37On the point of that I said, thinking about it's related to the fact that people have got their hands on the scales, they're pulling their friends up, it's a bit of a boys club. Is there any truth in that? I think, but I think, I mean, I'm, look, I'm sad to say, Steve, I think that it's probably being the way politics has been since the dawn of time. I think that politicians, I think politics has tended to be factional since the dawn of time. I think it's tended to be just sad, but I think true. The good thing is that in the end, the people who are really successful are the people who get things done that the people want done.

1:07:16Do you think it's the same magnet? And so, and so, and so, so, so it's a, it's a, it's a magnet for very determined characters who are willing to put themselves through a lot. So should get things done. I know, I mean, have I used those words before? No, no, but that's the kind of person you make me worry. It's not like you're quoting me. No, no, maybe you have, but yeah, but the man, but the kind of person I think would be compelled and succeed in such an environment. I think, I think you have to have a pretty thick skin. Okay, but the, but because of the, because of the way it works, the people who actually succeed are the people who really can try something forward and deliver it.

1:08:06Closing off on Brexit, 62 % of British people view Brexit as more of a failure, according to UGov, and 9 % consider it more of a success, and according to UGov as well, 46 % of British people say they should, there should be a second E referendum in 10 years compared to just 36 % that say it shouldn't be. According to, okay, let me just finish this. That's the young responder. According to the UK's real growth added value, the GVA, the measure of the size of the economy, they say there was approximately 140 billion less in 2023 in the UK economy compared to if the UK had stayed in the single EU market.

1:08:42According to the same thing, they say that 300 billion has been wiped off the value of the UK's economy by 2035. And my last stat here is a report from the centre of European reform in 2023 estimates the UK GDP was 5 .5 % smaller by mid -2023 compared to a scenario where the UK had remained in the EU, this equates to an economic loss of about 40 billion annually. And just as a business owner myself, I was looking at some stats around what business owners think. About 33 % of small businesses reported that Brexit has made it harder for them to trade with the EU to increase paperwork and things like this.

1:09:18And the London's School of Economics said that Brexit added 6 % to food prices between 2020 and 2023. With all of this in mind, do you regret Brexit? Not at all. Not at all. I mean, honestly, so we've outgrown Germany, France, 2016 onwards, sorry, certainly outgrown Italy, since 2016 onwards. Last time I looked at Germany and Italy were both members of the EU. And the statistics that you give, I mean, they are dwarfed, for instance, by Covid, even if you accept that, which I don't necessarily, that Brexit has caused problems, it's also caused massive opportunities. Because we were able to come out of the lockdown earlier than any other country.

1:10:15Remember, we came out of lockdown in July 2021. We ended all restrictions. And that meant that we had the fastest economic rebound of any G7 country. And that would not have happened, in my view, without the assistance of Brexit freedoms. Do you know that OECD, do you know that body is? Yes, they say the UK is the only major rich economy that remains smaller poorer than prior to the pandemic. And Brexit may be a factor in that. And the government's independent watchdog, which I know, you know, the office for budget responsibility thinks the UK will ultimately be 4 % worse off than it would have been had it not voted for Brexit.

1:11:00When I, you know, in business, everything is a trade off. Everything is a trade off. So you must be able to identify the trade off that the UK has made for all of the upsides that you claim Brexit is delivered. So I think it's intellectually honest of anyone to be able to identify both sides of the argument here. So what is the trade off? What has Brexit caused? No, what's it caused? It caused us. Yeah. I think that it's certainly true that the way that some of it is being managed by some of our European friends is unnecessary bureaucratic at the moment. I think that will get better. I accept that criticism.

1:11:42I don't think it's the end of the the end of the world. But I do think ultimately the advantage of being free to do your own thing, free to run your own country to control your own trade off. I have. I said. But the impact for us in the bureaucracy. For me as an average citizen, what's the trade off? Well, I think, you know, you know, it's certainly true that some businesses are finding it harder to, there is paperwork that I don't think that needs to be. And we need to fix that. But I think that we have technological solutions to that. I don't think that we need to be part of a European empire of law.

1:12:23And ever denser and more detailed empire of law, controlling our freedom and stopping us. Is there an economic trade off? I don't think I think that ultimately we will be richer as a result. But in the near time we're going to be poorer. Well, again, people were very emotional about this. Can you just remind you where before the referendum, people said that no one ever holds these people to account. People said that there would be millions more unemployed, right? Do you remember that? People said there would have to be an emergency tax raising budget if the people voted to leave the EU. Actually, when I cease to be Prime Minister, unemployment was at a 50 year low.

1:13:05And we had 620 ,000 more people in paid employment than before. The economic. I'm just saying that people make all sorts of pronunciations about Brexit. That's what I read you do believe them that there's an economic struggle in the short term. People said that we would have a million people on the dole queue. I find, but do you believe that there's a in the near time? They're now saying because it's confirmation bias, right? People said we will be richer eventually. I hope that we will. If we end you the right thing. Sure. So in the near time, do you think there's a little bit of struggle to get through economically as a result of Brexit?

1:13:48I think that certainly the case, if we make the mistake of staying, which is what Kierstown and Labour parties want to do, is staying in alignment with the EU. They basically want to be able to ask to be rules takers. Okay. I think that's a huge, huge mistake. We should go for freedom. I don't know how to say this in a way that you're going to understand, but Perfected is banging. I'm an investor in the company. I drink it every day. The whole team drinks Perfected every day. We have a Perfected fridge in the office. Here's why I like Perfected. Typical energy drinks used to give me these crashes.

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1:16:05That's netsuite .com slash Bartlett. The next big thing was the pandemic. This was once you'd become the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and you have this pandemic begin to roll in. I was looking at the way you described that situation in late 2019, early 2020 in your book. And it appears that you had no idea of the severity of this virus that was rolling into the shores. When was the first time you heard that there was a virus that had come in from China? Whatever the date was, I think it was either end of 2019, beginning of 2020. I can't remember exactly where, but there's a day when I'm walking through the lobby of the House of Comments with the Health Secretary and he says, you know, I'm worried about this Chinese virus.

1:16:58Was that handcock the right person to be handling that? Because that is a generational once in lifetime health issue. And in hindsight, look, I think you did a very good job. Yes, I think he was very energetic. Was he the best person to be handling it? I think he did a very good job. I think that was he the best person to be handling it? In hindsight. Well, I certainly think that he, well, yes, because I think, yes, I think that he had the right mixture of energy and realism. Don't forget, we didn't know about the disease. We didn't know how lethal it was. We didn't know how contagious it was.

1:17:48And we didn't know how exactly how it was transmitted. There was a lot of stuff we didn't know. Some quotes from your book here. You said, the problem wasn't that I was ignorant to zoo -notic diseases. The problem was that I felt I knew all about them. After more than 30 years of writing about or dealing with new zoo -notic. New zoo -notic, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I felt I knew my SARS and my Ebola, so to speak. I concluded two things. First, that these novel, zoonotic plagues tend to sort themselves out in second, that the greater risk of destruction from these, from attempts to stop them by politicians, was there a sort of attempt to contain the diseases that the prevention would probably be worse than the cause in some respects?

1:18:35So when that handcock started talking about a new coronavirus, possibly from bats in the risk that it would sweep the country, it was hardly surprising that I felt I'd had this all before.

1:18:47Little did we know? Yes, I mean, I think that's, I guess, I'm being very honest there about, about, as I home throughout Unleashed, about the my state of mind, because you know, I'd covered in great detail the salmonella and eggs panic when millions of chickens were slaughtered, needlessly I'd covered the, the Boba and Spongebob's full men's self off. Panic mad casies when vast proportion of the UK, dairy cattle herd was slaughtered probably needlessly. The livelihoods of farmers were destroyed. I'd been mayor of London when we were threatened with the, with a bird flu. She didn't know it was a big deal.

1:19:38And we'd let, we'd laid on stocks of time of flu, which turned out not to be, to be necessary. So like seen SARS come and go, Ebola and so on. And so what, what, what, what seemed to have happened was that there'd been a rational anxiety about the risk of a zoonotic disease, um, often from Asia or wherever, um, we would get in a real, we'd do our best to get ready. And then it mysteriously, it would leave us almost completely unaffected. I remember the swine flu. Is that what you thought was going to happen in this case? And I didn't know. Yes, I didn't know. I was, what I was trying to do was to give you context, the context and the state of mind that I think a lot of people were in when they, they heard about, about COVID.

1:20:37When did you call China February, how does February 2020, that was a call you made to the leader of China? To Xi Jinping. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would have called him, I mean, it'll be in the, it'll be in the, it'll be in the book. And you were sending supplies at that stage. Yeah. We were, we were still sending um, supplies to help Sam. We were sending, what did he say about the virus? Well, I said, um, I look, I remember the conversation is hazing now, but I, I think I, you know, um, I'm actually doing what seemed to be his efforts to control the disease, but said I was, I was anxious about the, what was happening in these wet markets because at that stage, we were given to understand that these, the disease had occurred spontaneously in a, in a market in Wuhan.

1:21:31What did he say? And I come to what he said to, to, to that. Um, I don't, I said, I said, look, I mean, he's a, he was a president of China. I don't think he wanted to, particularly the implication that China was in any way at, at, at, at fault. And I can't take it on standard. But I know, I think that probably wasn't right. I know, I think it was certainly, it was a, um, a lab accident or it was a, as a result of something that went wrong in that lab. Can I ask about this? Because this started as a conspiracy theory that is now widely accepted as, as probably likely outcome. Why were they messing around with a virus in a lab in Wuhan?

1:22:10Well, you may well ask. I mean, I think, I think they were, why do you think they were? Okay, someone that is so far away from why people do these such, such a thing. I genuinely don't know, but I think that they were, they were, you know, science, the point of science is to keep pushing back the frontiers of human knowledge everywhere and to see what you see what they could do. Do they have a weapon? I don't, I didn't have any reason to think so. But every reason to think so. I think it was a terrible accident. I think the thing escaped from the lab. I think they, you know, they were looking at engineering these viruses, assuming a function gain of the virus and ways that they could manipulate it.

1:22:54And sadly, something went wrong. That's my best guess. And a lot of people not seem to think that. You called Trump around this time as well to speak to me, Baddo? I did. Yes. What did he think? Well, I, yeah, I mean, he took the, the, the, the, firm view that, you know, China had a case to answer, but it's said that a lot of people. And in the book, you talk about the World Health Organization's response being seemingly hesitant because they are wanted to keep Beijing in favor. Yes, I think a lot of scientists were anxious about choosing off the Chinese. And I think a lot of scientists, you know, because China is very heavily involved in the support and sponsorship of a lot of academic research and so on.

1:23:42So there was a sort of hesitant, I felt, I mean, I might have been wrong about this. My impression was there was a sort of gingerliness about seeming to finger the Chinese too much. Unlockdowns. It's interesting that I was reading in your book that around the eighth of March, you start to see what's going on in Italy. And I think we could all vividly remember those scenes from those Italian hospitals, where there was patients in the corridor was being pushed around on trolley, trolleys, and there was not enough beds. And I think for me as well, that was one of the big moments where I realized, watching it actually play out on Twitter, that this was an incredibly serious situation.

1:24:18Something that I'd never seen in my lifetime before. Was that the penny drop moment for you that this wasn't just another bird flu or? I was very anxious about it because I knew the Italian health care system. I thought it was broadly excellent. And I remember when one of our kids had a fell into a swimming pool in Italy once, we never always had a lie. And you know, it's the most shattering thing that could have happened to you. And the Italian prompt us of course, so came, and they were unbelievably good. They were so fast. They were so, and I thought, you know, if Italians are having problems with this thing, and frankly, our population is by as elderly as theirs, then this could be very, very serious.

1:25:02So I think that did really register with me. And so if you look at the, and obviously I don't want to defer completely to the inquiry into all this underday, we have a ballot. But if you look at what happened from then all in, you see a series through, through March up till the 23rd of March, you see a series of intensifying steps to try to get people to take precaution. What I, what I observed, I saw that in the book and I kind of have the stages that you break down that you went through from that moment onwards. What I observed though, and I think this is probably a fair estimation or a fair description of what happened was there was indecision.

1:25:43Because it seemed like there was facts coming from one ear, facts coming from the other ear, and there was almost a bit of paralysis. And when you look at the rest of the European numbers, which I was looking through yesterday, about when different sort of European markets made that decision, the UK appears to make the decision to lock down much slower than all the other European nations. Slowest is to close the schools, that the shops and events seem to be later than our European counterparts. And my handcock went on to say that. They were ahead of us in the, in the, in the epic of anyway. So, so they were, so you mentioned the Italians, it's situation.

1:26:23Yeah. And they were already ahead of us. And, you know, we could see that we were going to have to bring in measures, but, you know, again, this would be for the inquiry to, to comment upon, but it's, it's, it's pretty clear to me that we, we couldn't reasonably have instituted these measures in the UK, which would novel and draconian in advance of the scientific advice or opinion. But on that, and that's what, and that's what we would have been. Then being ahead of us isn't relevant because the chart I have here shows how many days it took us to take decisive action after the third death. And it shows that for all of the European nations.

1:27:06And when I was reading about the information you were getting from scientists on this end and from other people in politics, it was so contradictory that I think I was guessing that that's what caused the indecision. And also your own sort of philosophy towards shutting down the scientific. We had this group called the scientific advisory group on emergencies, right? I think this, the stage. And they were, so we were going to be led by the science. And we basically had to, I decided that we had to follow what sage advised. And for a long time, to your point, they hesitated about schools because of all the disc benefits.

1:27:53And if you remember, the argument was that if you went too early, then there was a risk that you'd have to keep doing it. Because the public would lose patience with a lockdown. And there was a second argument, which was, there would then be bounce back. If you went too early and you kept on to, you'd then take the measures off and the virus would flare up again. And it did happen. So, throughout the course of the pandemic. So, the scientific advice was, I mean, it wasn't, I wouldn't say it was particularly confused at that stage. I think it was, there was struggling to assess exactly what to do.

1:28:46And there were different views within the scientists about certain things. My handcork said that we could have saved 30 ,000 likes. Right. Masked and so on. Is that true? My handcork said, you know, if we'd locked down earlier, I can't say that for sure. I've never known where I'm knowing that. But what I can say is that the two have locked down earlier would have been to have gone beyond to have anticipated the scientific advice. It would not have been something. And I'm not an epidemiologist. I'm not a scientist. I was being asked to, you know, the what was on the agenda was imprisoning the whole UK population.

1:29:38It wasn't something the scientists were yet recommending. In the book, you seem to question whether those lockdowns really even worked. So, I'm not saying that. Well, I'm saying. So, it's been looking me by work. I think that they certainly did have a role in stopping spread of disease. And they helped, probably to turn down the curve of the disease. Probably. You know, almost certainly. What I find very difficult to gauge now, and you know, again, this is for for heaven's hell. Is to what extent was it the lockdowns? What did it? And to what extent was this going to happen naturally result of the natural parabola?

1:30:29And you suspect it was going to happen anyway? I'm not saying what I'm saying is that to some extent, to some extent, or to a large extent, it was perhaps going to happen anyway, perhaps. And given that it was perhaps, or it was to a large extent, perhaps going to happen anyway, the question is, did the benefits of lockdown outweigh the very, very severe damage done to kids, life chances at school, which you talked about earlier. What do you think the answer to that question is? I think that we did the right thing. You think we did the right thing? I think we did the right thing. But I'm conscious that there are lots of people who disagree.

1:31:10And what I hope is that the COVID inquiry will say that, yes, we did do the right thing. In your book, when you talk about those measures, you refer to them as bonkers. There's sort of different areas. Yeah, I think that's a bit less later. That's when we got to the tearing system. You talked about bonkers. And you seem surprised that people would follow this stuff and that they wanted to follow this stuff, which is strange hearing it from the guy that put the rules in place. You think it's the tearing system was bonkers and you're surprised. But behind site, right? Yeah, yeah. So the time at the time, it seemed so we had a situation.

1:31:47So coming out of the first lockdown, so in the summer of 2020, I think I'm going into the into the autumn and things start to get more difficult again. We have a situation where some parts of the country in places like Leicester or West Midlands or wherever, North West, you have the tears. You've got a problem, which is that some areas haven't really seen the COVID really go down anything like as much. It went down to West Country, Cornwall. Was that bad idea on hindsight? And so you had people saying why the hell should pass because it's in Cornwall, when there's no COVID? And just because there's transmission in in in Baltimore or wherever.

1:32:42So was that bad idea on hindsight? Well, no, it was a good idea in principle because because after all it wasn't, it was crazy. It seemed. But the problem was that it was very, very difficult to draw the boundaries. And as soon as you said, you know, well, this bit of Leicester's in tier, whatever or it was people were able to do it. It was crazy. But it was very invidious. And it seemed you country during a pandemic. And you've got, you're getting these numbers every day that people are dying and that people are sick. And then, you know, I know you've got sick yourself. What is their mental toll on you throughout that period?

1:33:24Well, I think it was so, you will discover unleashed. I like it when I can go forward and when I have things that the positive projects are due. So it was very, very difficult when I was constantly having to shut the country down, constantly try to stop the transmission of the disease by these very, very crude methods. But once it's by end of 2020, we had the prospect of a vaccination. Then my move totally changed. But because that because I had something like my question was about you as a human being, when you're dealing with tragic news and this escalating pandemic, what's the human toll? If I'd been a fly on the wall in your hardest moments from that pandemic, what would I've seen?

1:34:12Well, I think that I think it was certainly pretty tough. I had a bad bite of COVID. What was the hardest day outside of the illness yourself? What was the hardest day for you throughout that period? I think that, oh boy, I think it was, there was a lot of tough times, but I think having to go probably, I mean, to go back into lockdown in the end of 2020 was pretty awful. Because I was on the clad. We really, really hope that cheering would work. And some people still think it could have worked. But it just, well, I couldn't take the risk. The quote from your book that I pulled out, which really shocked me, was the real question I suppose is why are the public so avidly craved these roles and why they were so willing to have their doings circumscribed in such a rabbinical detail?

1:35:07In their complexity, they were also like a kind of religion detailed rituals you just obeyed, levitticus like in the hope of salvation, because slight science was slow to help us. On the 13th September 2021, your mother, Charlotte, passes away, while at the same time you're dealing with all of this, fall out in the recovery from the pandemic.

1:35:32That's a tough moment. Yeah, but that's the same for any person, and any, in any walk of life, you know, that's always a very, very tough moment. I think that in a, to your point about the people, why do people obey the rules so much? And my feelings about that, I think, no, I'm asking about your mother here. Sorry, your mother passed away in September 2021, and you don't touch on it so heavily in the book, the circumstances of that, but that must be a particularly tough moment for a person that's dealing with all of these other social issues and political issues at the same time. Yes, I know, but I mean, I think of, I suppose the point I make in my brothers and sisters, my family, very, very, very tough.

1:36:31We miss her to this day, all of us, but a lot of people were suffering a lot throughout that pandemic, and a lot of people lost loved ones. And I had to be very, very mindful of what was happening every day in households across the country, and I had to try to, and I had a desperate, because one of the interesting things about being Prime Minister is, is the way it works now, is how much of it is just funneled upwards. And, you know, there's, you have to take those decisions. There's nobody else who can do it for you. Which you remember where you were when you found out that Charlotte was, had passed away?

1:37:16I was driving to London. I'd been, I'd been out on a visit. And was it unexpected? Well, I mean, you know, she'd had, she'd been ill for a long time with Parkinson's, and she had various complications associated with Parkinson's. And she'd had a bad scare about a year previously. So, now I couldn't say it was, you know, medically, I could not say it was medically totally unexpected, no. Did you have a chance to grieve her passing? I certainly did. Grieve her passing.

1:38:05But, if you mean did I sort of process it, more than it? To the best of my ability, yes. Are you a natural, that sort of thing, that sort of emotional, I guess, connection with yourself?

1:38:31I think you could probably go back to some of the earlier things we were saying. I mean, I did grieve. And, you know, I do miss her. All my brothers and sisters, I do miss her today. But, you know, I also had a huge amount to think about and to get done. And we just have to, we have to do it. Many members of the UK population were also mourning and grieving at the same time. And I think that's why the party gate scenario, which you talk about in the book, was so enraging for many people because as someone who again is not very close to politics like myself, it's optics here. You know, and I think that's really the issue when you've got people who are unable to see their loved ones because of the situation with funeroles and the pandemic, even the suggestion that there was a rave going on in number 10 is the most enraging thing that I think anyone could say.

1:39:27There wasn't a rave going on. You'll find it all there. You'll find it unleashed. And I feel desperate about it. I really do. And I understand, and I understand, you know, completely why people got so enraged. I really do understand that. And I did my best to try and, you know, I think I miss handled the whole thing, the revelations as such as they were. But also reality. But, you know, because at the end of the book, you're doing to highlight that you could have done things to... Well, what I could have done was what I could have done, I think. So I I wonder why commission sugray to conduct an investigation into it.

1:40:07I mean, I was informed that she was you know, politically impartial and a model of sort of, you know, obsessed with with probity. And neither of those things now seem to me to be true. I've got a picture here. There was 17 parties that were alleged during the sort of party gate time frame. And one of the pictures that leaked to the public was this picture of you enjoying some cheese and some wine, I believe, at 10 Downing Street. Now, as again, a member of the public, I look at this. I look at some of these key dates. I know you were fined for one particular date, which was your birthday. I think when you were raising the glass of wine with some colleagues.

1:40:46No, no, it wasn't. You see, again, you see, people say this kind of thing. And it... Was that AIDS leaving drink that you were find for? No, I wasn't find for that. What were you find for? I was find for my, for going into stand at my desk in the cabinet room between meetings with the glass of wine. Not with the glass of wine. And several members of staff were also there, but there were people I saw throughout the working day anyway. But this picture... And just because people think that I had a cake. Yeah, and that we... We didn't have a cake. I didn't even see a cake. To say it was a party is a complete travesty.

1:41:33It was about the most legubrious event. It was a consisted of people who were part of my normal working life. That picture that you're pointing to there was the metropolitan police did look at that. But they decided there was no offense committed because what you've got is people sitting outside as people tried to do during those times because there was much less risk of infection. Let me just read some of this stuff. So, 15th of May 2020, cheese and wine at Downing Street approximately three and 49 people had died from COVID that day in the UK. Mr. Johnson was photographed sitting with his wife, Kerry, and some staff at a table with white and cheese and then number 10 garden at this time, COVID restrictions so that people could not leave that.

1:42:18But I just, I've just, I've reasonable excuse. Let me just read this and then I'll... But we were, I was at that, that's my, that is my home. I know, I know, that's my home. That's the garden I was supposed to be using. May 20th, there was a bring your own booze party on the same day that three and eight people died from the pandemic. And you were attended for about 30 minutes. You say it was 25 minutes. And then the 19th of June was your birthday. Sorry, can I just get back over there? I mean, none of this washes with the public because they all think that we were having dancing around and getting around.

1:42:48And the last place was... 12th of April, Johnson announces that he's been £550 by the police. Do you know what it is though? It like... It's all about, it's all about leading by example, isn't it? And you know this, yeah? I think my opinion is that whatever's going on at number 10 needs to be the extreme demonstration of the perfect example, the extreme demonstration. Because you're, of course, you're going to be attacked. Do you know that? Yeah. Of course, if you sneeze, you'll be attacked. I say that. I say that in the... That's what I'm saying. So, I... So, what we should have done. And I say, we should have...

1:43:24I should have said to everybody, look, people are going to say, you know, matter, because it was in fact, as I tried to explain, impossible to maintain perfect social distancing in the office environment that we were in. People were working around the clock.

1:43:45And I think that I should have said something to the staff. Like, people are going to be out to get us. For God's sake, you know, not only obey the rules, but be seen to it. A obey the rules. Now, we had, you know, all the signs and the corridors and stuff like that. I think that there were a lot of people by our stage who perhaps not all together. Friendly to me, who wanted to... It's, you know what? Just ditch me up. That's fine, but honestly, I can't help but believe. Because I try and remain pre -emportional in these things. So I try to play common sense as like a business person, but it was...

1:44:21You really think I was deliberately partying and breaking the rules. For me, you really think for me, seeing that photo when one of my friends can go to their grandmother's funeral, and seeing that those people drinking and appearing to have a well over time, just in this photo, but also the other photos where you're choosing with wine, I go, you should never have allowed that to happen. Do you know? And I think you agree with me. You agree with me? I should know. Because you said at the end of the book, you said, I should have said to my whole team, don't even let them appear to be breaking the rules.

1:44:52In the course of... Almost two years. People working around the clock in number 10, in conditions of great proximity to each other. There were going to be moments when, of course, when colleagues are saying, are going away, and when you raise a glass of them. Unless you're going to ban that. I think you should have. Well, that's a point of view. Because I just think... You banned alcohol in 1940. I think you wouldn't have won the second world war. I think Prime Minister, during a panel, I think you just have to be the most extreme example. What's the most... Sorry, but we got a ban on alcohol in this country?

1:45:29No, I think genuinely. Sorry. If we banned alcohol in number 10 in 1940, I think all gatherings should have been banned at number 10. Because I think... But we were gathered. That means banning meetings. So what do you mean gatherings? Gatherings with alcohol and music and cake. I think it should have been banned. I've tried to explain to you that wasn't a cake. I saw no cake. I was at no event where there was music or dancing, that table nonsense. Now, maybe those things took place, but they certainly didn't take place when I was there. I think one of the problems, one of the mistakes I made was beginning the whole thing.

1:46:10By issuing this general apology. And so what happened was, so the people think that there was... Do you still apologize? There was... Do you still apologize? I don't apologize for allegations of vomiting or fist fights. No, but they turned out it's not your apology for. And well, insofar as people broke the rules on my watch, and so I'm responsible. Of course, I apologize for that. But what I'm saying and unleashed is that... The problem with leading with a blanket apology was that it then meant that absolutely any allegation that was... You've said you've just said it made a couple of yourself.

1:46:50Any allegation that was then made about and in sugera's initial report that she had to change it. She said there was a violent altercation and vomiting and somebody... But both of those things turned out not to be true. You said you made the mistake... In your book, you said you made the mistake of issuing pathetic and groveling apologies over the scandal, which made it look as though we were far more culpable than we were. Which is just the point I've just made. So it's because it looked as though. But by issuing a sort of universal apology, it meant that any subsequent allegation, people assume, well, that must be what happened.

1:47:33And you'd be fair to... I think I can get the feeling that's what you think. No, no, no, no, no, no. For me, it's largely my fault because I seem to be... It's not validating. The apology is not that long as you have. I seem to be validating everything that people said about what was going on. And what was actually going on was that people were working unbelievably hard ran the clock to get a lot of very difficult things done. And for me and actually, the things that they were successful in are very creditable. And so it's not validating. It's not validating. I feel badly about them. On some of the pages 105 of your book, you say, in retrospect, I should have done more to protect myself and the rest of white hole against party -to -game, pipe allegations.

1:48:21I should have said to the entire staff, perhaps in the letter, about the vital importance of not only obeying the rules, but also to be seen to be obeying them. And reminding... And I think that's actually my point, which is, apologies, I think, are good things. I think people should apologise. No, but I'm trying to explain. If you apologise in advance, the problem was that a lot of things were said about staff in other ten that weren't true and weren't fair to them. And my blanket apology looked as though I was validating and accepting all those criticisms. Which I think was, in retrospect, I think I should have waited to see exactly what people, you know, go ahead and said, and what was established to be true.

1:49:06And then I should have apologise for what... Just go ahead and say, I'm sorry. I understand. And also, I want to stick up again, but those officials who were working around the clock to sort out the government's and the country's response to COVID, and when it came to it, didn't absolutely outstanding job. And I don't know. I understand. I understand. I just want to... You'd be very patient with me. You know, you've allowed me to talk for almost two and a half hours and what I thought was going to be an hours show. So you'd be heroic in putting up with these. We're wrapping up now, but I just want to ask a few more things.

1:49:40These are personal questions that I have. Do you? So, one of the things that no one knows about you is how many kids you have. Why is this such a widely debated subject? I've never sat with a guest on my show where... I don't know why they're so widely debated. It's a matter of a matter of a part. I've eight children. You have eight children of a matter of public record. Okay. I don't know why people... Why is everyone so obsessed with it with a... How many kids do you have? Search me, girl. Charlotte Owen. You're not related to Terry. No. She's not a former level. No. Okay. I asked my friends some of the things they wanted to do.

1:50:09She's a... But it's in the book. Readable about it in the book. She is a very capable advisor. And what happens next for Boris Johnson? Are you going back into politics? I live a life of blameless rustic obscurity. Do you want to get back into politics? I... I think that... The chance of the friendship to come. Yeah, I guess the most I can say. There's a similar issue. You should only do things if you genuinely think you can be... Useful at the moment. I think the most... I'm loving... I've been doing a lot of painting. I have a great time living in... You know, in the countryside. I got my hands folding all sorts of things.

1:50:43And... Next question. Berkfeier. Yeah. Trump or Kamala and you can't sit on the fence. Are you British prime ministers, including ex -prime ministers? Yeah. Are constitutionally obliged to be friendly with whoever... Who's the best for international relations? Whoever... Whoever the... The American people decide. And that is the right thing. And that you are dwindling audience, you'd not expect. Who's best for stopping the war? Who's better for stopping the war? Kamala or Kamala? I mean, you know, if you read unleashed... I did read it. Okay. And I saw your interview on GB News and you seem to think that Trump would be a better...

1:51:18Well, I think... What I'm saying is that you should be aware of some of the kind of anti -Trump prejudice about his having a foreign policy. And there are very good... You know, there are very... When he was president, he took some tough decisions and... And, you know, projected in a sense of American strength and purpose. And I... You know, but I make no further comment than that. We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're going to leave it for. All right, okay. And the question that's been left for you is success often comes at a price.

1:51:54And one of those is the relationships we lose along the way. Which relationship or person did you lose in the pursuit of your success? To me.

1:52:07You seem to... Well, the longer you live, the more you realize it, you know, you can have what seems to be a complete, terrible... Sundering and then learn the whole things cheer up and earn your friends again. And... So... I mean, look at Michael Gove. You've got to answer the question. Which relationship or person did you lose in the pursuit of your success? I don't... I don't answer Michael Gove's question. I don't... I don't regard any of the terminate... Any rupture... I don't regard any rupture as... No, I've never swept this question. So you're not going to be the first... I don't regard any ruptures, why?

1:52:46Which relationship or person did you lose in the pursuit of your success? They're not lost. I did, sorry. I did. Give me a person. Give me a name. We've never had... This is long -standing tradition. No one's ever swerved this question. I had a... Clearly, I had a rupture with Michael Gove, but then... In 2016, but then... With... Heroic optimism. I... I put him back in the cabinet. And... Yeah, there you go. Boris, thank you. Thank you for your time. And thank you. I'm going to link this book below, so anyone who wants to read... Unleashed. ...can get the book, it'll be linked below. It was your writing style is exceptionally engaging.

1:53:26I think everyone that's interviewed you from the ITV to GB News has said the same thing. The book is linked below. If you're interested in the subject matters we've talked about, but many more, it's an exceptionally long book. Some... 700... I don't know, I got it right. It's over 7171 pages. With the... With the index... With the index and the... And the... And the things. Incredibly detailed book into all of the key issues that have happened over the last... 5, 6, 7 years. And some touches of what happened in your life before. Link down below. Boris Johnson, Unleashed. Thank you so much, Boris.

1:54:01Thank you very much to you, it's been an honor. I think... Do I get a prize for that? I think that must be... Well, that was... How long was that interview supposed to be? Because I don't know, there were always two... Usually, there are four hours and sometimes there are four hours. I see.

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