172. Neil Kinnock: Trump, Thatcher, and Why Labour Lost In 1992 (Part 2)

23:27Neil Kinnock:And as the days and weeks passed, I have to say, despite my initial fury, which because Because they were my friends, I was in the fortunate position of being able to tell them straight between the eyes how I felt, which didn't come as any surprise to them. I realized that part of their reasoning was because they'd witnessed what the Murdoch press had tried to do to me and that they were going to try and at least neutralize that. And secondly, that this thesis that they put forward, that if we can't get them on side, we can try to blunt them by personal contact, I thought had common sense to it.

24:15Neil Kinnock:So eventually, I came to terms with it. I did say, and Alistair may remember this, that he will betray you. And And of course, eventually he did, but not for a very long time. And I must say that the neutrality and then support of the Murdoch media, well, I don't know how useful it was, but it certainly was better than having their antagonism in political terms, even though it was deeply offensive, of course, to sections of the Labour electorate, particularly those in Merseyside. Okay, Neil, Rory, quick break, and then we're back to talk more.

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26:24Rory Stewart:So there was this amazing moment, 1987 to 1992, where it looks like you're going to turn around the Labour Party and you're going to win. In fact, the polls going into that election in 1992 look like you're going to win. What was the strategy? Imagine we're in 1991, you're giving a speech to the core of the Labour Party. What is the strategy that you thought would to win that election? How are you going to win that election?

26:48Neil Kinnock:Well, I had this difficulty. And the difficulty started on the day that John Major became leader of the Conservative Party. I said on the night that Thatcher resigned to my people in the office, it was quite crowded, drink and be merry tonight, because tomorrow we have got an entirely different battle. Now, I was anticipating the election of Michael Heseltine, which I was looking forward to, because despite his talents, which are very substantial, he was in the Conservative Party a very divisive figure. And I thought we could take advantage of that. When John Major became the leader without actually being elected, it therefore presented this with a terrible problem because we didn't know and we never really decided.

27:41Neil Kinnock:I don't think we'd given enough thought to it, which is a shame, whether to represent him as the offspring of Thatcher and Thatcher in trousers, or to represent him as someone who'd been adopted and accepted simply because he contrasted with her wretchedness. We never really made up our minds which to do.

28:10Rory Stewart:In retrospect, what do you think was the better strategy? What should you have done?

28:15Neil Kinnock:Neither of those. We should have really understood what a decent, competent guy he was and simply gone after him because of the policies he disposed and supported. So that is son of Thatcher. Yes, that is kind of son of Thatcher, but unquestioning supporter of Thatcher who'd opportunistically seized the crown and should be attacked as a typical politician, having, and the phrase I was going to use, rather shamefacedly, got rid of the poll tax, which was the source of so much of the Tory ailment. Now, that at least would have been cogent.

29:04Rory Stewart:I do think something fascinating here. You both ran against Major, and I'd really like to get the contrast to this approach. We've heard a little bit about you, Knight 2. What was your analysis in 1997 on how you should fight Major, and how did that differ from the way that Neil had fought? You were fighting the same man.

29:19Neil Kinnock:Well, people knew who he was by 1997.

29:21Rory Stewart:They had no idea who John Major was in 1992. But tell us about the 1997 analysis and how you thought you could beat him and how it would be different to the way the 1992 campaign was. Well, I think partly we were more able to make it much, much more about us.

29:36Neil Kinnock:Yes. Whereas I think Thatcher and Thatcherism was still the dominant factor in the debate. And I also think that, and I've really been interested in Neil's take on this, John Smith, who was Shadow Chancellor, and was seen as very safe and solid and what have you. But the shadow budget, I don't know what you have used it, Labour presented a shadow budget, which I think opened the door to the Tories amount of very, very conventional anti-labor attack. It was putting up tax to pay for different things. And I just think that against Thatcher, that might've worked. I think by then Major had managed to present himself as a very different sort of political figure.

30:15He had some really good attack dogs behind him. Chris Patton in particular. And once the shadow budget was out, I mean, I remember in the day saying, I am now really worried. So I think we maybe neutralized the Tories better. Is that fair?

30:33Neil Kinnock:Yes. And as I said, the Tories and John Major were divided, but he was better known. And it was at the end of 18 years. Now, in 92, I mean, Alistair's right about the shadow budget. I'd argued from October, November of 91 that we should begin to disclose the main elements of our fiscal policy in order that we would maximize the time available for rebuttal, explanation, to try and win the argument over the common sense, economic soundness and justice of the main proposals we had. which related, for instance, as Alistair said, to combating child poverty and pension poverty, which was widespread and was fundamental and a serious, desperate problem for millions in the country.

31:40Neil Kinnock:And we had policies that, without imposing excessive taxation, in fact, without making any difference at all to the overwhelming majority of the population, could provide us with the resources to deal with these priorities. And I wanted months to impart all that. John insisted, a highly respected figure of considerable brilliance in many, many ways, insisted that his This concept of the shadow budget produced the day after the real budget as a rebuttal was the way to do it. And he adopted that attitude the moment it became apparent in early October of 1991 that there wasn't going to be an election until the spring.

32:30Neil Kinnock:And I couldn't afford to even have a private quarrel with John over that because he would have been public within seconds. I simply couldn't afford to allow the idea of a serious division between the shadow chancellor and the leader of the party to arise. So I kept my counsel and we went ahead with the shadow budget, which then gave us days, weeks for attempted rebuttal and explanation instead of the months I wanted.

33:05Rory Stewart:So Neil, this is critical then. If we were creating a sort of drama out of this, this is the moment where you lose the election. In retrospect, what could you have done to head off John Smith? Should you have asserted your authority more? Why couldn't you trust him not to keep that disagreement private? Why couldn't you grip it and follow your judgment?

33:28Neil Kinnock:I requested John to keep it private, but I couldn't really contemplate the possibility that he wouldn't talk to his staff. And it was kind of in the ether anyway. Yeah. It was in the ether. Yeah, it was in the ether.

33:42Rory Stewart:But in retrospect, wouldn't it have been better just to assert your authority, say, we're putting it out now. No, that would have been seconded, which would have been disastrous. So he lost you the election in some ways?

33:53Neil Kinnock:I'd never say that. I'd never say that. I wouldn't even say that this issue relating to the shadow budget was a single cause. I mean, I was part of the cause of us losing. The recency of the great change we'd made and the allegation, which I knew was coming from the Tories, that our changes were opportunistic and cosmetic because we'd made them only in order to gain some votes for the election. and we were insincere. And however admirable the changes were, they demonstrated our agreement with the Tories and not any independent change, all that stuff. And that, particularly in the context of the way the defence policy had sort of evolved and changed over time.

34:39Tell us about that defence policy. To move from being a unilateral nuclear disarming party to a completely different position. It wasn't just one thing, but I think that was the moment I felt this election was going. And I felt Neil felt that. I remember talking to Glenis at the time.

34:56Rory Stewart:But you had another alternative, which was to go into the election saying there will be no tax rises at all. We're going to copy the Tories fiscal policy letter for letter.

35:07Neil Kinnock:Well, in the conditions of 1991-92, that wouldn't have been feasible. By the time they got to 96-97, and Gordon Brown gave that undertaking, he could do it.

35:21Rory Stewart:My argument with Gordon at the time was,

35:24Neil Kinnock:it's great, do it for one year, don't do it for two years. I thought two years was too much.

35:30Rory Stewart:Why couldn't you do it in 91 and 92? Because that again is Keir Starmer's strategy, wasn't it? He went into an election essentially saying he wasn't going to raise taxes.

35:37Neil Kinnock:Sure, because it had been successfully performed in 96-97, and I don't blame here for doing much the same thing. It's unfortunately painted the Labour government into a corner. But nevertheless, in lead up to election, I don't blame them at all for adopting that strategy. It wasn't really obvious to us in 91-92 because the serious central policies of combating pensioner poverty, for instance, that we were committed to could not have been feasible without change in taxation, specifically taking the cap of the national insurance contributions so that people did continue to pay proportionate national insurance contributions after£22 ,500, which was the cap amount set in the period before 1992.

36:41Neil Kinnock:So we couldn't simultaneously undertake to address a major problem for the whole country of pensioner poverty and say that we weren't going to raise taxes. It would have been stupid to even try. The 1992 election, even though in your bones you might, as the campaign went on, thought this is not going to happen. And I certainly felt that towards the end. It was nonetheless devastating. And I covered the campaign with you. I was with you on election night. I was with you the next day. And then we went away on holiday for a while as well. I know you get through it, but do you ever actually get over something quite as crushing as that?

37:28Neil Kinnock:I think I did, partly because of obviously Glenys and the kids and you and Fiona and other members of my family, Colin and Barbara, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, and that very tight surrounding circle of friends and comrades, also comrades. Also, the huge flow of affection from the labor movement. John Major said to me, he was kind enough to ask me to lunch the week after I stopped being leader in July 92. And he said to me, how's the party treating you? I said, with huge generosity. Some of them, in mistaken kindness, have even asked me to stay on. God help me. And he said, I was different from my party.

38:21Neil Kinnock:I would be crucified if I'd lost. And I said, well, okay, perhaps the Labour Party is more used to losing and has affection for its vanquished. But all that, the main thing that meant that I didn't wear the scars was my preoccupation with what was going to happen to the people who had given me their lives in my office for the previous nine years, most of them for nine years, all of them for more than five years. And I was so concerned about what was going to happen to them and trying to ensure that they prospered and had good futures, which they did. I'm very, very happy to say, largely by dint of their own remarkable talents.

39:13Neil Kinnock:But they've thrived, all of them, which is great. But I was so preoccupied with that that I couldn't really focus on having been beaten. There's also, I will confess, as I have on previous occasions, there was a relief at not carrying that every second of every day for all those years. the weight was mitigated massively by glennis and the family and friends like you but um it was always there and it had gone oh god but then but then i think the other thing is interesting listening to i don't know roy thinks of this but you get the sense you can't really bring yourself to be remotely warm about thatcher but you actually are very warm about John Major.

40:03Relatively, yes. And of course, another night we were with you is when John Major phoned you up and offered you this to become a European commissioner. I know you talked about it and thought about it, but that was quite a big thing for him to do. It was.

40:19Neil Kinnock:He was in favor, it appears, of me going when the commission changed in 92. And the DeLore Commission had two years added to its tenure because of the way in which the new admissions to the European Union were coming and other changes being made. So the extra two years were stuck on. Our commissioner, Bruce... Bruce Milan, yeah. Bruce Milan, wanted to leave the commission. and wanted me to succeed him. So he let that be known. And apparently John Major agreed with him. But the cabinet didn't. And it didn't on the understandable grounds that they'd been saying for years, I couldn't run a work stall.

41:07Neil Kinnock:So how were they going to support me being a United Kingdom commissioner on the European Commission? And it was comprehensible to me. I didn't know whether the chance had gone forever. But when eventually the commission term was ending, John Major did phone me. You happened to be there on that day. I'd just come back from Manchester where I'd been interviewed. Ryan Giggs. Ryan Giggs for the Evening Standard. Yes. So it was quite a day in many ways and a course for celebration. But the thing is about John Major is he's a decent cove from a background which doesn't compare with mine, which was much more disadvantaged than mine.

42:01Neil Kinnock:I mean, mine wasn't disadvantaged. He would have been much stronger contender in the Angela Rayner, Bridget Phillips and off that you talked about in episode 1, Rory. Absolutely true. And in his case, it would have been true.

42:13Rory Stewart:Now, Neil, just to return for a second to that loss, what strikes me listening to you is the burden that you were carrying from 1983 to 1992 was that you didn't just feel that you were trying to win a game, you were fighting for something that was existential. I mean, Thatcherism for you was you were carrying the burden. You've just described how much damage of Conservatives. Winning in 1987 and 1992 was not just a question of personal vanity, this was your life's meaning. It must have felt unbelievably devastating. It wasn't just a personal loss, it was a massive loss in everything you believed and what you believed in in terms of British public, what you believed in terms of British nation, what you believed in terms of decency and politics.

42:59Neil Kinnock:Yes. The most important part was, you just mentioned it, the condition of the country and the prospects for the country, which I felt had been hugely damaged, maybe irretrievably, unless the ism of Margaret Thatcher was contradicted and uprooted. I thought that John Major was likely to mitigate it, but not do any better than that, and thus it is proved. And the labor government, 13 years of labor government, did seriously mitigate the damage, but the residue is still there. And it's evident in our low productivity, in our separation from the rest of our continent, in social and public attitudes, in the housing crisis, in the condition of the financial sector, in privatization.

44:04Neil Kinnock:It's still there decades, decades later.

44:07Rory Stewart:So given all that, how could you explain to yourself why people in 1992 would vote again for the Conservatives given all that you'd seen, given all the damage that you felt they'd inflicted, given your sense of British voters? I mean, it must have been very, very difficult to understand how they could vote again for the Tories after 13 years, given all that.

44:34Neil Kinnock:One reason was that Margaret Thatcher had gone, and the other reason was that I hadn't gone. The fact that Margaret Thatcher had gone meant that the change that the public overwhelmingly, as the polls showed, were demanding had occurred. And in her wake came this almost unknown, mild-mannered, normal guy from a disadvantaged background who'd made his way right up through politics and had a reassuring presence. And that was a very substantial reason. The other reason was I'd been there far too long. I, to the public, was stale. I was same old, same old. And so consequently, whatever policies we were offering, there was no additional offer, no extra 5 % coming from Kinnock.

45:36Neil Kinnock:Because I really do believe that shelf life has huge significance in democratic politics. And I'd probably outlive my shelf life. Can I just say, in Neil's defense, there's also another factor, which actually Alistair Calpine, you would know, and he was a former bigwig in the Conservative Party. He was Tory party treasurer. Tory treasurer. And he said to the party staff and publicly, let's not pretend this was us winning this. The real heroes of our campaign were David English, the editor of the Daily Mail, Nicholas Lloyd, the editor of the Daily Express, Calvin McKenzie, editor of the Sun. I mean, they absolutely weaponize the the press and look i don't know whether it made that big a difference but it's to have years of relentless negative non-stop coverage you pay a price for that which to go back to our earlier discussion is why we were so determined to try to to neutralize them now i know you'll be loyal because you always are but we haven't even got on to labor today It's quite a frustrating watch at the moment.

46:46Neil Kinnock:Frustration is the word, because we've got this huge majority that is biscuit thin, yeah, 50 miles wide and one inch deep. I know that. The public knows that. Keir Starmer knows that. But we've still got the legitimate authority of being the government of the United Kingdom elected across the whole of the country. I'm frustrated by the fact that that justifiable means of making change is not being fully used. I don't mean in an authoritarian way, only bullying way. Indeed, I mean with the maximum of consultation and consideration. But nevertheless, there is such a yearning for change in the country, which paradoxically, of course, partly explains the support for populism.

47:46Neil Kinnock:That it isn't a support for the dishonesty, a misrepresentation, the mirages of Farage. it's a yearning for an alteration in what is felt to be a real deterioration in standards of living of conduct of world significance all kinds of things but do you think do you think there's something that has changed fundamentally between your time and the time that i was working with tony and now that makes it much much harder to do this. I think that there must be something that we're missing because you and I probably agree on a lot of the things that need to be done. And I think that they, in number 10, think they need to be done, but there's something different about our politics now that it's harder to do.

48:38Neil Kinnock:It's the way in which any instinct for audacity has been discouraged, almost prohibited. But Trump is showing the opposite. Well, of course, Thatcher did. Tony did. Not because you want an adventurist like Trump, who's a menace to the whole world, but because you want from democracy to show a perpetual freshness. Montez-France, who was French prime minister back in the 50s, a significant socialist figure, said that democracy is like a bicycle, common bicyclete, that it must go forward to stay upright. And that's the constant requirement of democracy. Now, anything that looks that it's slowed down to a halt, that it hasn't got fresh initiatives to deal with perpetual change, which is, as the name suggests, always occurring in any case, generates at best disappointment, disillusionment, the feeling that the powerlessness of the government in these circumstances is a reflection of the powerless, the impotence that people feel themselves to cope with the constant changes.

50:04Can you see a way of this being turned around, of Farage being stopped, of Labour getting another majority next time?

50:11Neil Kinnock:Yes. We require, I think, probably three things. One over which we haven't got any real control, but the things over which we have control are accomplishment, the demonstration in practical terms that things are starting to work, that improvements are being secured, that advances are being made. Now, to some extent, of course, that always in any case takes time, especially with a government that absolutely rightly has made record commitments to the improvement modernization of public investment, which in turn will magnetize private investment, which is great. But by definition, there are no instantaneous advances that come with that.

51:02Neil Kinnock:But other achievements, and the government has got a wholly inadequate communication system because it's not even telling the people the good things that are very gradually, painstakingly being achieved. And on top of the inadequacy in communications, many of the good things are obscured by the distractions and the mistakes that have been made, which every government makes. But they've completely clouded and made invisible some of the good things that are happening. Now, achievement is the irreplaceable requirement. If we don't succeed, we won't get support. Full stop. That's it. Second thing, we ought to be much more effective in our exposure of Farage and populism and reform, who they associate with what they do, what they really think, what they've promised, the pledges that they've broken, discarded without a second thought.

52:12Neil Kinnock:all that must be exposed and reported again and again and again and again, simply so that people understand the massive confidence trick that is being successfully attempted so far. Now, there's nothing that illustrates that better than the stance of the reformed people in the period before the 2016 referendum vote. And it isn't that I'm remoning. It's the reality. They told what they knew or they must have known to be lies about immigration, about the economic prospects beyond our departure from the single market. Well, they denied it would leave the single market. Well, of course. They said in explicit terms that it would be supreme folly to leave the single market.

53:10Neil Kinnock:And yet they knew, they must have known, it was the absolutely unavoidable consequence of leaving the European Union, of voting to leave. The third thing that we should attempt to do without bullying or any form of oppressive behavior whatsoever on the country is to improve our communication, especially social media, radically, transformationally, because we are losing the air war. I suppose the last thing, this is four things, though, that we should try to do is to get the mainstream media to treat reform and farage like a normal, professional political party, instead of treating them as a novelty, which is the source of easy stories.

54:02Rory Stewart:Okay, final thing for me. What would Prime Minister Kinnock be doing dealing with the challenge posed by Trump and Trumpism at the moment? And what would you be doing about the constitution of the European Union? I'd be trying to take advantage of him.

54:16Neil Kinnock:I mean, I admire hugely the patience, the tolerance being shown by Keir Starmer towards Trump. He hasn't really got an alternative because of the capricious attitude that Trump's got and the way in which he would, without question, conduct the most vicious form of vendetta. He's capable of doing that. And Keir Starmer can't afford to gamble and won't gamble ever with the fortunes of our country and make us the object of malevolence by Donald Trump. But I would try to take advantage of Trump. For instance, and it's not too late now, last April, Trump's so-called Independence Day, which was an act of madness in completely seeking to destroy the consensus, which since 1945 gave us 30 of the best years that the world economy or our economy or the American economy ever achieved as to 30 years after the war and has been eroded, corroded since, but still exists.

55:33Neil Kinnock:Trump is smashing it to smithereens with potentially appalling consequences. Now, I would have tried last April to say, look, what the President of the United States has said and is doing, which is perfectly entitled to do, means that the arithmetic and the expectations of last July have been shredded. We therefore have to adopt a different course, which means intensifying and accelerating our efforts to make a new relationship with the European Union. It means we have to change our fiscal stance and start to make a proper levy on assets while not inflicting additional charges on people who have to work for their living.

56:27Neil Kinnock:taking advantage of the crisis inflicted by Trump in order to make changes. And I would still be seeking to do that because I think people in general recognize, certainly leaderships of various countries do, that Trump is making such changes without warning and without a second thought, frankly, that it alters the whole basis on which government policies have been anticipated, developed, applied. And therefore, change is essential in order to sustain prosperity and security, which are the fundamental requirements of democratic governments. Listen, one of your great heroes and inspirations, Nelson Mandela, we can't get through a long, long interview without you saying what you think makes him so special.

57:28Mandela was superhuman. He felt all the natural responses to the cruelties inflicted on him,

57:42Neil Kinnock:both physically and spiritually. But somehow, he managed to override all that, even when he was in a position of power, and he could have manifested his resentments and settled scores and paid off people. That I regard to be utterly and restrainedly admirable simply because he was normal, utterly normal. And his only abnormality was his mercy and his wisdom. It was extraordinary. Neil, lovely to talk to you as ever. Same here, mate.

58:25Rory Stewart:It's been a great, great pleasure to have you. Thank you again. Thank you. Bye bye.

58:32Rory Stewart:Well, Alisa, thank you very, very much. It was interesting because it's the first time I've received emails from you saying one of the tricky things is that he's such a good friend and has been such a good friend for such a long time. You've got a slightly different manner towards him than I think you do to almost anyone else. There's a certain sort of fondness towards him and a kind of gentleness comes out of you when you're talking to Neil. You say you're always a friend with Tony? Not the same gentleness. Jonathan? No. No, no, no. You're more sort of cheeky with them. Whereas there's a sort of gentleness that sometimes even is sort of almost a kind of filial deference towards him, which I haven't noticed with anyone else.

59:12Oh, no, I don't think that. I'll tell you what was happening. And if listeners and viewers are a little bit confused as to why Neil was clearly teary-eyed talking about Nelson Mandela. It's just because prior to that, we'd been talking about Glenis. And we're not going to show that bit because he was in bits. And I just think that Neil is one of the most extraordinary guys I know. He's a very, very, he's an amazing friend. We have been through an awful lot of ups and downs and he's just, and his family are amazing. and so no I don't I didn't feel I was being more deferential but if you spotted that no and I think it's just pity in a way that we didn't talk about Glennis because I think you can't talk about Neil without talking about Glennis now one of the most formidable political partnerships and she was a really amazing woman I and I also maybe I do think that I think this with Tony but Tony went on to be prime minister and won three terms and and what have you I think that Neil's legacy is so bound up in what we did.

1:00:17And even though Tony always said and Gordon always said, you know, in speeches and talking about Labour, the debt of gratitude we owe to Neil Kinnick, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I think to have gone through what he went through and didn't get to be prime minister in the way that Wilson did and Callaghan did and Tony did and Gordon did and now Keir Starmer has, I think that, I think he has to be recognised in those terms. So, yeah, it's interesting you thought that.

1:00:43Rory Stewart:I'm still processing this, but that 92 defeat, how devastating that must have been given how viscerally Neil, you, everybody in the Labour Party felt about Thatcherism, felt about what she'd done to the country from 79 to 92. I mean, you must have felt this was a kind of profound moral campaign. So it must have been almost incomprehensible. Well, I'll tell you a couple of things. On the way back, I can remember the next morning, we came back from Wales, and the next day I was just doing the round of media, because I was still a journalist then, on college degree. And there was a journalist called Peter Jenkins, who was a very, very well-known political commentator.

1:01:29And I remember him, I was doing a two-way thing with him, with the BBC, I think it was. and he said, I think the Labour Party has to understand that if it cannot win in these circumstances, it's probably never going to win again. And I remember thinking, five years later, we won a landslide. But the reason I think I can remember that is that that really, really hit me. I thought, are you seriously saying this is like the death of the Labour Party? And I didn't feel it was, but you could see why people were thinking that. So it was absolutely visceral. It was visceral. and for a personal perspective I'll never forget this either Fiona and I went I think it was the next night we went round to Neil's house in Ealing and up until then there was this scaffolding outside because all the media had been hanging around just waiting for him to come back from Wales, pictures etc etc the scaffolding was still there and all the media had gone and we went inside and I'll forget it Dennis was sort of making a cup of tea Neil had his slippers on and as you may know Rory I don't think slippers that's a look and he was literally sort of looking at the TV listings to see what to watch on television and then this little holiday we had in Devon with Gavin Davis and Sue Nye the first day we got there Neil playing football with Rory, my Rory who was then five and just thinking how do you go from that to this and process it?

1:03:05The funniest thing going out and about at that point was everybody coming up to Neil saying, I'm so sorry because I voted for you. Neil said, God, if they all voted in the way they said that, I'd be a landslide by now.

1:03:16Rory Stewart:So just to finish, I thought what Neil said about the STP was really fascinating. One of the things that I took from it is the sense that you can't just win in politics on the basis of exceptional individuals. In some ways, Roy Jenkins, David Owen, and Shirley Williams would have seen themselves as really exceptional individuals and they would have hoped that they were taking the real stars of the Labour Party and this new party and that would be enough and it wasn't enough. In the end, sheer organisation, party history, unions, skillful leadership by Neil, destroyed these great intellectual stars.

1:03:55Rory Stewart:So has Neil been added to your list of Labour heroes with Alan Milburn and others? Yeah, and people like David Blunkett, who I'm not sure he agreed with politically. No, I loved him. I thought he was so gentle and moving. I mean, I would say on record, I'm much more of a Tory than he is. I'm a bit suspicious about his views on privatisation, deregulation. It all sounds very reasonable, but I imagine in practice, I'm probably a bit more pro-market, pro-business than he is. But as a human being, I thought he was absolutely wonderful, and I'm very proud that he was part of our political landscape.

1:04:26Rory Stewart:Excellent. See you soon.

1:04:53Rory Stewart:We'll see you next time.

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