207. Gordon Brown: How to Fix a Fracturing World

22:34I think he said it could become 100. We could benefit from that. And so innovation, in my view, you say it's about risk and security. I think it's about innovation and where you have innovation and Britain has it. So we've got it in medical technology, brilliant medical technology. We've got it in, obviously, environmental technology, wind wave, nuclear fusion, Rolls Royce and all that stuff with these smaller nuclear reactors. We've got it in the creative arts. I mean, media, film. But what we need to do is to be able to underpin that with support for the scale up. Somehow we've had a blind spot about innovation.

23:12We've done lots of planning reform, infrastructure reform, great stuff, skills, employability, housing reform. That's all been part of the first two years of the government. But I think focus on innovation, because that's our unique selling point. Britain is the innovative nation. We did a survey on this, and the figures come out and say only 36 % of people believe that Britain is a world leader in science. It's not true. People think of the past. They think of James Watt, and they think of the telephone and the television. but they don't think that we had the vaccine brilliance and being one of the first to create a vaccine.

23:45We've got obviously Tim Berners-Lee and what he's done in the World Wide Web. We've got all these advances that are taking place in quantum computing where Britain has been in the lead and is in danger of losing it. So I would be backing innovation. We should be the innovation nation. That's what we should be talking about. It gives us something to tell the world that we're good at and we can actually be even better at in future.

24:07Rory Stewart:Final one on economics for me. China shock 2.0. There's a real sense that Europe is in trouble because China has got a currency that's too cheap. It's got a subsidized industrial policy and it's essentially eating the European economy alive. What should we be doing about China and its economic policy? Well, I know what Europe is about to do. It's going to put protectionist tariffs up against China. China, I think, is in a sprint at the moment to get as much of the global market as possible before something happens, which means that America and China are at odds with each other. Now, that means we're in a very dangerous world.

24:44So we've got to look at the long term. What role can China play in this new world? Clearly, the question is America versus China. How is that going to work itself out? And I think we've got to think our way through this. We have got to get, in my view, a coalition of countries that are neither China nor, unfortunately, at the moment America would not join it, that set down principles of cooperation. And let's hope that when we set them down, because look, the UN Charter was 1945. The UN Charter did lots of great things, still should be the central piece for the way we think about the rules-based order.

25:20But it didn't deal with climate change. It didn't deal with global public goods. It didn't deal with international terrorism. It didn't deal with the relationship between the South and the North, which has changed fundamentally. It didn't deal with women's equality, for that matter, as well. So we need a new set of principles of cooperation. And this is where I think China and America are put their challenge. Because for all the other countries, and let's say 120, 130 countries, they've agreed to most of the things that I would want to talk about, where there's international cooperation. If they agreed, here are the principles of cooperation, then it's not China calling the shots as they would like to do, or America calling the shots they'd like to do.

25:59They have to respond to what countries like Britain, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, Korea, Japan, all these countries want roughly the same things. And that's where I think we put pressure on this. So in the short term, you're going to have this protectionism against China. And China, of course, is subsidizing a lot of these cars and solar panels and so on and so forth. So they're making them a lot cheaper than they would otherwise be. in the short term we're still going to have the trump tariffs so you're still going to have that protectionism but we should set out a course that says look we are the majority of the population of the world and we're going to come together and please join us but if you don't join us we're still going ahead but gordon if you go through your you've got seven principles for your idea of a new global charter human dignity human rights sovereign equality rule of law collective action on shared threats to life peace security duty of states on citizenship equitable partnership and collective responsibility for shared global risks.

26:59It is incredible, as I was reading that, to think, I was trying to, with Trump in mind, thinking, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Tell me if this is what you're arguing, a bit like Mark Carney, that we almost have to give up on the United States global leadership. We have to frame something new that we play a leadership role in, and Europe is central to that. Those countries who agree that these are the principles, and I think most sensible people would agree these are the principles in which the future should be based, have got to come together. I do not rule out America joining in. Trump, by the way, talks about reciprocity all the time.

27:35And so he wants to say that America's been hard done by, and therefore they're going to penalize countries that have been difficult to them. But the principle of reciprocity runs through this as well. And if he thought about it, I think he would have to say, you know, fair trade is something that is a two-way street. So in some cases, Trump might agree with us or might be forced to agree with us. But I agree. Look, he published a map yesterday with an American flag, basically. Greenland, Iceland. He included Iceland, which probably he didn't realize he was including it because it's probably AI generated.

28:08And he had Mexico and he had Greenland. And look, I read an interview that he did in, I think it was 2021. And he said, I love maps, he said. And Greenland, such a huge place. I'm a property developer. We want that. And, of course, he'd looked at the Mercator map, the old map of the world, and Greenland looks the same size as Africa. And it's one and a half times America. So he thought, if I get this, then I've got America, America, one and a half times more. And he hadn't actually looked at the real world, but Greenland is a fourteenth of the size of Africa, and it's just a bit big. Now America's voted against recognizing the reality in the new map.

28:48He's got it wrong because he looked at a map and didn't get the practical sort of information. And Greenland's a relatively small country. How does this start? Is Europe the obvious leader of this? I mean, Mark Carney is calling all of the shots on this. Is Europe in a new, a stronger, bigger Europe? I think the key to this is recognising it's got to be global north plus global south. If we try to have another European initiative only and then say the rest of the world has got to follow us, we fail. But I'm actually talking to leaders in Africa. We're having a meeting at the United Nations on the principles of cooperation.

29:23Korea wants to be part of this, in my view. Japan would want to be part of this. You know, if you look at the polling we've done this year, the worry that people now have is about peace and war. And it's really interesting. In the last year, the balance has really shifted. People were worried about trade. They're worried about standards of living. They're worried about all these things and still are. But most of the world, if you ask them what their biggest worry is now, is the conflicts and the threat of war. And what's happening, unfortunately, is that nine countries have got nuclear weapons.

29:58But there are nine other countries that are now having to consider, they think. So North Korea's got nuclear weapons. So Korea thinks if America's not going to provide shelter for us, well, we're going to have to do it. Japan then thinks we have to do it. But then look at the Middle East and look, because Israel's got nuclear weapons. And people say, well, what's Saudi Arabia going to do? It wants nuclear weapons, UAE. And then you'd have Egypt and then you'd have Turkey. And we've now got even in Europe, Poland saying that they might have nuclear. And you're right, Germany thinking if we can't get a nuclear shield that we can guarantee, then what do we do?

30:31And so that's another nine countries. So from the time that we thought we'd have only nine nuclear weapon states, we could have nearly 20. And that is a huge change in the world. and it makes, of course, the prospects of peace more distant because basically the tendency, you know, AI, I don't know if you know this because the combination of AI in this, there's a study done at King's College in London. I saw that, I read that in the book. 95 % of the answers from AI systems, 95 % of them, when asked what you do when there's a tension between two countries, they end up with escalation and escalation and they end up saying fire a nuclear weapon.

31:09If we allowed AI to have that kind of control or even that kind of advice, then we're into a world that is very, very dangerous indeed. So these countries that I'm talking about outside America and Russia and, of course, China, if they come together, I think we shouldn't underestimate. 120 countries now come together to deal with a treaty to deal with crimes against humanity. About the same number of countries came together to deal with a treaty on the laws of the sea. about the same number of countries have come together with this judgment of the International Court of Justice about climate change having to be dealt with as a legal issue.

31:46It was promoted by Venato, one of the ones most affected. And so there are countries coming together, but I think we've got to put it up to a new level that we want to cooperate even if you don't. We want a world where it's not us versus them and it's not a zero-sum mindset. It's not if I do well, you've got to have to do badly, which is, of course, the way some people like President Trump may see the world. The opinion polling that we have shows that that's what the people of the world want. And it's interesting. That's what the people of America now want. Opinion has moved in America in the last year or two, and people now want to cooperate.

32:22So we asked the question, would you be prepared to cooperate with other countries, even if it meant some compromise of your national interests? And we've now got, what, 57 % generally saying that, about 60 % saying that in America and Europe. And that is really interesting that people recognise that even if it meant no America first, or no Russia first, or no China first, they know that it's in the interest of them to cooperate by coming together, even if it means some sacrifice of some part of national interest.

32:52Rory Stewart:One of the things that's very striking listening to you is how very, very differently you think about the world, view the world, describe the world from many of the current working politicians that we interview. And I wonder whether looking back at your own life, you can see that there's something in the nature of modern politics or being a leader today, which makes it quite difficult to think in that way or frame things in that way, whether it's changes in expectations of voters or social media or structures of politics. But essentially, our experience is that when we're interviewing current elected leaders, they don't frame things in those ways.

33:30Rory Stewart:New cycle. Alistair, you must be the first to accept this, that everything could be only short term if you allowed it to happen, because every day you've got something that you've got to react to. Every day there's a new event. I tell the story about President Kennedy in the early 1960s coming to meet Harold Macmillan. And he comes to London to meet him. And Macmillan is still asleep. there's a true story Macmillan's asleep so he's brought in given a cup of coffee and given a copy of the Times to read while people waken the Prime Minister Macmillan up now I know he was an old man but it's at that time but if that happened now the split second timing of even not being at the door to greet him or offering him a copy of the Times and saying I'm not too busy to talk to you it would become an international scandal When we did the G20 in 2009, one of the points was which car was going to arrive first and which car would arrive second, third and fourth.

34:33And Sarkozy wanted to be the person who arrived last because he was president of the European Council. And Obama had to be last because he was president of America. And if you got that wrong, you know, so the small things, but it's because you're in a 24 hour news scandal. I mean, you could be asked what you thought of an incident in Coronation Street or Emmerdale Farm or EastEnders, and the prime minister would be expected to know what his view was on that issue. How do we break through that? Are you finding that easier out of office than in? Well, of course, it's easier because you're not dealing with the day-to-day problems in the sense that you had to do.

35:11So the important thing is to realize that that is an issue. So when it came to the financial crisis, I made a mistake because I didn't explain it properly to the public. Because we had a view that nobody initially accepted that this was not a liquidity problem. It was a solvency problem. And you couldn't solve it by just getting the rotten assets out of a few banks. You had to fundamentally restructure them. And nobody agreed with us at the beginning. But I spent ages trying to work out what the problem was and then trying to find a way through that. And I didn't explain to the public. So the Conservatives were able to say, oh, it's a debt problem made in Downing Street.

35:44The government's to blame, all that sort of stuff. When in fact, it was a financial scandal that had started in America and had to be solved by countries like us. So you've got to be able to get to the bottom of a problem. So it demands that kind of leadership. You've got to be able to explain what you're doing, which demands a particular kind of leadership as well. And at the same time, remember, you're dealing with all sorts of other things during a major financial crisis. And people are saying that, you know, what tie you're wearing or something. It becomes an issue. So I think leaders have got to think carefully about how they do lead.

36:18And I think it's, first of all, you've got to have a clear view of what you're trying to achieve. Secondly, you've got to be able to communicate in a way that I probably was not good enough at. Well, I certainly was not good enough at. And you've got to deal with the immediate. So you've got these three issues that really every day you've got to think about. Do you think Andy's got those three qualities? Of course. But the challenge is when events come in, I mean, Harold Wilson said, you know, events, events, unexpected events, and you've got to deal with it. That was McMillan, wasn't it? McMillan.

36:49McMillan events. Did I say Wilson? You said Wilson, yeah. I think about Wilson. Harold McMillan said events. What was Harold Wilson's great one? What's going on? I'm going on. But I was, you know, British, dead heat. He was talking about clearing out the deadwood from the boardrooms and the white heat of the technological revolution. He was good at words. No, we've got to talk about that now because that's the innovation nation. In the 1960s, we didn't have much evidence of the innovation nation. We had Concord, but it only started in the 1970s. We had TSR-2, the fighter aircraft, and we cancelled it.

37:27I think the only evidence of the innovation nation at the time was actually the Beatles. But now we've got so much evidence that, you know, something to build on. But I think it's having the long term in view while having also to recognise if you don't deal with the short term, you lose out badly.

37:44Rory Stewart:My final one, when people look back at New Labour, they often talk about you, Tony Blair, Alistair, Peter Mandelson. And one of the things I suppose puzzles me, because it relates to your point about politics, is it difficult to keep long term friendships going in politics? I mean, for a general listener, is there something about the nature of being a politician which makes relationships and friendships quite tough? I think it's difficult, obviously, because politics is full of personalities and they've all got their individual qualities and everybody wants to be heard. But I think the noise around it is equally sort of difficult because there's all sorts of people around you, the media building it up.

38:26I mean, this is the issue in Britain. We tend to see issues purely through personalities. We tend to think of ourselves as empiricists. We're pragmatic. People don't think of big ideas. One of the things that your broadcasts are doing is talking about ideas, and that's really important. But if you look at the press coverage probably today, I think it's more about the king and his sons, but it's all seen in terms of personalities. Now, I think when I was in government, that was a very limited part of what the issues were. We were actually trying to do things. We actually had policies. I think what we were trying to do on child poverty what we were trying to do on rebuilding the health service what we were trying to do on schools and education and all these things are sort of forgotten because people just talk about personalities and I don't really think that was the biggest issue when you were dealing with problems and of course people have got strong views but I think the noise around it if you see Britain as probably people write up the last 15 years as X number of prime ministers X number of chancellors and that is the story of Britain But really, the story of Britain is trying to overcome an economic problem that nobody has satisfactorily got us back to growth.

39:36And as a result, austerity, as a result, public services, as a result, people's standards are living, not rising. Now, that's the big issue. And we should be addressing that rather than addressing, you know, who did what, when and who talked to whom and who didn't talk to whom at any one time. And I think in the end, if politics is going to be helpful to people, people say politics is the art of the possible. I say politics is trying to make the desirable possible. And that's where our focus should be, rather than on individual personalities and what they do and where they live and who they talk to and whose friends there are and how much money they have and everything else.

40:12It's got to be about ideas, because in the end, the only thing that will change lives is whether we get the ideas we have, if they're good, translated into policies that can benefit people's lives. Well, your book, The Future Starts With Us, has got plenty of ideas. But before you go, the day you left office, you stole my tie. I've never had it back. No. You were wearing a blue tie. You said, I cannot go out on my last day wearing a blue tie. I had a red tie. You took my tie. You walked down the street with it. I've never seen it since. I think a very good charity benefited from that time. And I will try and get the information of how much money was raised by the auction.

40:51And thank you. Thank you. For the time. Thank you for your time.

40:55Rory Stewart:Thank you very much.

40:59Rory Stewart:Something completely obvious to you, so obvious that it's boring for you and you won't want to talk about it, but is less obvious to the audience, is that this is somebody that you know professionally more than almost anyone on earth. I mean, you worked with Gordon Brown hand in glove for so much of your life, right? So this is not just a normal interview. This is almost like interviewing a sort of family member or something, somebody you really have a lot of history with. And it is history and it's very up and down history. And I could tell he bristled at your question about relationships and friendships in politics because they are very, very difficult.

41:36Rory Stewart:And it was interesting because it was quite a sort of innocent question yeah and and the only one in otherwise the conversation about global politics but but at the end of it he very much teased me about that and said you know because yeah because he was saying look you know your podcast and your broadcast i love the way he talks about your program and your broadcast you talk about big ideas and then but you know at the end there you talked about personalities it's not important yeah and but of course friendships and personalities and relationships are important when if i track back so because i'm so closely identified with Tony Blair, people probably aren't aware that when the two of them got elected first off, I was much closer to Gordon.

42:15Right. He was the senior of the two. Yeah. He was therefore from a journalistic perspective in a way more interesting. Yeah. I worked on The Mirror. Yeah. He had a weekly column on The Daily Record, which I used to help him write. And when I talked about working with Gordon on speeches, he's just relentless and sort and never gives up. So he's a stressful guy to work with. And then, of course, I think there's no doubt getting away from this. I don't think he's ever fully forgiven me for backing Tony Blair. Not backing Tony Blair, but in 1994, expressing my journalistic, strongly held view that Tony would win the leadership election if there were one.

42:56And Gordon would have expected you to be with him. Yeah.

42:59Rory Stewart:Or would have hoped you would be with him. And I also think in that, even though a lot of Scots might think i'm english i think gordon sees me as very scottish right and even though tony was born in scotland yeah cesar was very english and i think there was a little bit of that but then through it through it all i was always you know there were people around tony who said you know god is so difficult he's this but what you saw today is why tony always took the view that you needed him around because he's so smart he's so clever he's so driven and he is capable of thinking big thoughts and then putting them into action.

43:36Yeah. You know, but it was difficult. And then, of course, when I, then we had, in an individual question about the personality, he talked about there are people around you and he had people around him who made my life hell at times. And there was one point where I said, look, you know, you better understand if that guy Charlie Whelan's not out, you've got a real problem. Yeah. But I've always respected Gordon because he is ultimately a big, big personality, a big character, a big political character with big ideas. But it was difficult. It was often difficult. But then, of course, I went back in, you know, the reason we were joking about the ties, because I was there right at the end, having gone back for his election campaign.

44:15Rory Stewart:So for younger listeners who don't remember this, it was an amazing moment. So Tony Blair had been this unbelievably successful new Labour Prime Minister, achieved an incredible majority when And actually, when I was at school, I mean, just to put it in context, studying politics A-level in the late 80s, early 90s, the conventional wisdom was Labour could never win again. The structures of British politics permanently excluded them. They were doomed because they'd been losing since 79. And then Tony Blair wins this incredible majority in 97. And then eventually he hands over to Gordon Brown. And at least the story in the public, which I think must be broadly true, is that Gordon Brown was crossed because he thought he should have handed over earlier.

45:01Rory Stewart:But eventually he inherits, he gets the crown. And people like me are very sort of taken with the idea that here is this incredible kind of intellectual titan coming in as prime minister. And he's going to fix all the problems that we thought were there with the Blair government. I actually wrote an article for the New York Times in 2009, which David Cameron's never forgiven me for, I think, where I said Gordon Brown represents the moral seriousness of the new politics and much better than what I saw as Cameron's more lightweight approach to things. And of course, it turned out that in pure raw political terms, it didn't work.

45:38Rory Stewart:And he seems to be suggesting that one of the reasons for this is communication. You know, basically, the account he gives is I had all the right ideas. I was doing all the right things around the financial crisis. the problem is I couldn't communicate it. And by God, you understand why? Because I'm sitting there thinking the problem was not a liquidity problem. It was a solvency problem. And I'm thinking even I am trying to work out what the hell you're saying, right? So even nearly 20 years after, he still hasn't found a form of words to actually explain to the general public what he's trying to say.

46:09But I think that's because he was saying he finds life easier now because he doesn't have to do all that stuff. I think the thing about community, because he can be a brilliant communicator some of the best speeches of the new labor era and speeches as you know i think are incredibly important part of communication some of the best speeches tony they were both very good speakers in very different ways but i know what he means about i've said to you before my mum always used to say i think gordon would have been a great politician in the radio age and that wasn't about how he looked although he doesn't particularly like going on camera no but it was about he's got an amazing voice he's got a real rhythm to his voice which i think is important in politics But I think what he means by communication is that he is one of those guys who thinks, right, I'm doing this incredibly important job.

46:55I'm trying to save the world economy. Let me do it. I shouldn't have to be talking about it the whole time. And when I talk about it, I should be able to talk about it in my terms. Solvency against liquidity. Correct. Correct. And what should have been happening, and to be fair, I think Alistair Darling did a pretty good job on this, but there should have been other people around who were doing the sort of communication he's talking. That's the first time really that I've heard him say that, though.

47:20Rory Stewart:The solvency against equality thing is really interesting, because not only does it not work with the retail voter, it doesn't work with most journalists, and I would guarantee 95 % of members of Parliament would have no idea what he's talking about. I mean, that is a problem. When he came in, he was saying, what are these live events you're doing? And you said, yeah, well, we did the O2. He said, what, 15 ,000 people? How did he do that? how do you communicate to 15 000 people in the same space and the truth is you communicate in exactly the same way as if you communicated to 10 people but i think he a little bit like i don't think he enjoyed the modern stuff of politics the stuff that i'm afraid you do have to do you know if you're a political leader today and you're not really mastering social media or having people to do for you you've got a problem so i think he's and the coronation street emmerdale thing was also revealing i mean those are sort of slightly limited dated references and a part of i guess a general sense that he basically doesn't think that kind of soap opera culture yeah he hates it he may have forgotten but one of my low points in his communications director of press secretary was when i in a briefing i inserted totally blair into a storyline in correlation street so maybe he hasn't forgotten that so he might not forget that as well but this is where life gets really difficult and complicated people very very close to gordon think that i'm anti gordon brown right okay so that's part of the history here yeah which i've never been and it's also true that i sat next to him at dinner and thought i'd got him to promise to come on the podcast and he didn't come we've been doing this for four years and we finally got him of which congratulations but and it's true he doesn't like tories but my suspicion is that four years is more about the fact it's like me trying to get david cameron on there's some personal thing going on No, I think it's more that he and some of the people who are with him would worry that I'd want to relive the whole Tony Blair Gordon Brown thing.

49:12But truth is, I'm brought to death by the whole Tony Blair Gordon Brown thing. I'm really happy not talking about it. Because what I've always liked about Gordon is his Scottishness, is his sort of Cacoddiness, the fact that he's dedicated his book to Cacoddy.

49:26Rory Stewart:I love all that. His Facebook page was 50 ,000 people. Exactly. Is it not a bit of a nightmare, though, being the Member of Parliament for Kokodi, given that you have a former Member of Parliament and Prime Minister sitting in Kokodi on the Facebook page still inhabiting that? Possibly, possibly, possibly. But if you were to do an index of that half hour, 35 minute conversation we just had, there was a lot in it. Incredible. There were a lot of different countries, thoughts, ideas. There's no arms and arms. That's what I like about it. He packs a lot in. It felt much longer than 35 minutes. He speaks so quickly, so concisely.

50:00Rory Stewart:There's so much info. No, it's beautiful. And, you know, he will be frustrated he didn't get to talk more about economic policy. When I sat next to him at dinner, he obviously can provide a 45-minute lecture on what the Chancellor should do and how to restart the British economy. I do think, though, you know, if I was going to get onto the policy problems, I think there are probably three policy problems that I can see. One is, It's absolutely true that membership in voluntary organisations is collapsing, but it's also true, as you suggested, it's unbelievably difficult for the government to do much about getting people to rejoin voluntary organisations, particularly if he says we're not going to make it compulsory.

50:38Rory Stewart:Second problem, I think, is that there's a real tension between the fact that he's still very much in favour of free trade or some version of free trade and the reality of what China means for European economies is China shock to these subsidized stuff. What do you do about China? And the third thing is the gap between daily domestic, increasingly populist inflected politics and this idea of reconstructing this big global South European alliance. Because probably if you were to put Keir Starmer or Kemi-Badenhock or Merz or Macron in a room and say, what do you think about this? They might say, well, it's all very well in practice, but my voters, this is not their priority.

51:23Rory Stewart:This is not their language. In fact, increasingly, the way voters from left and right view the world is actually against many of the things that you put in your list. Yeah, but I wonder if a role for this, there are so many, we've got seven of them. There is, in fact, no, we've got more than that. We've got, we've got how many, we've got 10 living prime ministers or something like that. If you go back to John Major, I wonder if one of the roles for former presidents, former prime ministers, isn't to do a lot of the legwork on this. It's very interesting. He's got a passage in the book where he talked about the, I can't remember the exact number, but the massive bestseller that the Beverage Report came.

52:02People reading it. Now, we're not in that sort of world anymore. But I think if somebody outside day-to-day politics, dealing with the 24-7 media, etc., were to put together a group of people, not just politicians, with the brief to create the space for a middle power, new infrastructure, that basically in its messaging, we can't rely on America. We don't particularly want China. Great if they want to get involved in some of the arguments. But anybody else? I could see that. You remember the Nelson Mandela elders group? Yeah, yeah. A sort of bigger version of that. Yeah. And I could see somebody like Gordon playing a big role.

52:42Rory Stewart:I also think power of ideas. I mean, I've always been struck by the fact that in about 1982, I think, four or five slightly eccentric Scots sat in the upper room of a pub thinking about a constitution for Scottish devolution. And 15 years later, that was almost the blueprint of what you guys delivered, that unless somebody does the thinking and lays out the ideas on that, or in fact, I'd make the same point about AI, that we all say that AI is dangerous, we should be regulating AI, but nobody's actually worked out the details of the charter and what this regulation is in advance. So when the crisis happens, something's there.

53:23Rory Stewart:Rishi Sunak, if you were to interview him, and I hope we can get Rishi, also thinks in that way. I mean, though he might be more tech-focused John Major, of course, is quite interesting. Tony Blair does a lot of this stuff. It'd be interesting to see whether one could get them together. Or with others. You know, look at the Malcolm Turnbull in Australia, Paul Keating, Kevin Rudd. I mean, they're all, there are so many, because politicians are becoming leaders younger, they're leaving younger. And you've got all this experience and thought and analysis. And, you know, I just think we've got to use them better.

53:58Rory Stewart:Final one, though, that I often notice in interviewing these people is that very, very quickly they become pretty high minded and global and they lose their rooting in polling voters, day to day politics, surprisingly quickly. I mean, it's like, I always felt this when I, you know, actually, Gordon Brown very kindly came in to see me when I was the different section of state. And I remember thinking, oh, he hasn't been out of office very long, but he no longer sounds like a politician or feels like a politician. Interesting on that, the answer to that is this book, I mean, Gordon was never a massive, well, he was interested in polling.

54:37But this book, polling is at the heart of it, this massive global poll. And added to which, one of the things I really like about this book is that he does weave in and out of the local. and the global. One of the best chapters is actually about Kikodi. So, no, but it's inevitable because the other thing with politicians, you can see this, he didn't want to say anything that allowed anybody to listen to this and pick up Gordon Brown tells Burnham to X. And I think all former prime ministers feel that, that they don't necessarily want to get, some of them want to, like Ted Heath used to with Thatcher, but most of them, the good ones, I think, I'm not saying Ted Heath wasn't good in lots of ways, but they don't want to be, just be judged by what they're saying to So when I said, is Andy Burnham going?

55:17Yes, of course he has. He just said that about any Labour Prime Minister. Because I'll be honest, I've been, as you say, it's taken as a long time to persuade him to come in. I think he'll be pleased and relieved that we did actually just talk about big stuff. You don't think I blew it with my lapse? A part of your lapse. Which I thought was a very, very good question. Nicely framed. but how would you have answered that just to finish it so the the well i would have answered it differently too i wasn't surprised that he answered the way he did yeah i probably would have lent in a little bit more to well because he's actually got a bit of a dig at the board of peace in this book if you go to the index you won't see blair tony yeah but you will see board of peace um i would have lent a little bit more and probably if it but this is different this is why he's different and i'm i was never a prime minister but i would have said look it's a bit like a rock band that was when we were all on song together it was amazing that can't last forever people make mistakes people fall out and you know and i was angry about this and i was angry about that and you know okay maybe the people going about the granita thing but maybe tony did stay a bit too long you know i think i've led to a little bit not you know it's all about you terrible media people who just want to say it's all a soap opera um thank you i thought it was I enjoyed it.

56:41I think our system will be right.

56:42Rory Stewart:Very worthwhile, very interesting. Thank you very much. See you soon.

57:10Rory Stewart:Sunny skies and dropping prices every plan to just$15 a month. Give it a try at midmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task. Unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website, to marketing, to selling, and beyond, And Shopify can help with everything you need.

57:40Rory Stewart:There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz, and Allbirds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into... Sign up for your$1 per month trial at shopify.com slash special offer.