Speaker 1: It's a rubob season right now. It is. We've got
Speaker 1: some in the garden here, lovely. Is it closhed or uncloshed?
Speaker 1: I don't ask me that he has. He got a
Speaker 1: cover on it to keep it all nice and pink. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's very fancy. It loses its pinkness quite quickly, it does.
Speaker 1: There's some trick to bringing that back, and I can't
Speaker 1: remember what it is because I'm not a gardener. I
Speaker 1: love to look at the gardens, but I profess any
Speaker 1: expertise in at all. And people love rubob crumbled apple crumble.
Speaker 1: That's good too. My mom used to make great apple
Speaker 1: crumbled mine too. This is a little no packed man,
Speaker 1: And I'm actually a foodie. I adore food. Oh dear,
Speaker 1: you're not very fat at all. You don't look like
Speaker 1: a foodie ever. Trust the thin cook. Hello, I'm mini
Speaker 1: driver and welcome to many questions. I've always loved prus questionnaire.
Speaker 1: It was originally an eighteenth century parlor game meant to
Speaker 1: reveal an individual's true nature. But with so many questions,
Speaker 1: there wasn't really an opportunity to expand on anything. So
Speaker 1: I took the format of Proof's questionnaire and adapted. What
Speaker 1: I think are seven of the most important questions you
Speaker 1: could ever ask someone. They are when and where were
Speaker 1: you happiest? What is the quality you like least about yourself.
Speaker 1: What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you? What
Speaker 1: question would you most like answered, What person, place, or
Speaker 1: experience has shaped you the most? What would be your
Speaker 1: last meal? And can you tell me something in your
Speaker 1: life that has grown out of a personal disaster. The
Speaker 1: more people we ask, the more we begin to see
Speaker 1: what makes us similar and what makes us individual. I've
Speaker 1: gathered a group of really remarkable people who I am
Speaker 1: honored and humbled to have had a chance to engage with.
Speaker 1: My guest today is Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister
Speaker 1: for the UK. He is to date the longest serving
Speaker 1: Labor prime minister and broken eighteen year marathon of Conservative government.
Speaker 1: When he came to power. He studied law at Oxford
Speaker 1: and told me he never intended to go into politics.
Speaker 1: I have to say I was very interested about having
Speaker 1: the opportunity to speak to a former world leader, and
Speaker 1: one of the things that really struck me was the
Speaker 1: starting point idea of commitment to service and social progress
Speaker 1: can't help but be altered by the actual machinations of politics.
Speaker 1: Tony Blair is a Christian by faith, and I very
Speaker 1: much enjoyed discussing, amongst other things, the nexus between spirituality
Speaker 1: or organized religion and science and reason. Where and when
Speaker 1: were you happiest? So when people ask you whether you're
Speaker 1: happy or not, it can refer to a period or
Speaker 1: it can refer to a moment. The periods of my
Speaker 1: life which I were most happy, we're probably in my
Speaker 1: sort of early thirties, as I was really starting in
Speaker 1: politics and beginning of family, and and I had everything
Speaker 1: to kind of look forward to when you're an MP. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've become an MP. I was kind of climbing the
Speaker 1: political leader. Things were fascinating, but there weren't too pressured.
Speaker 1: You haven't got to the point where the politics started
Speaker 1: to really cut into your life. And we were starting
Speaker 1: a family, so that was great, and you know, that
Speaker 1: was a very happy time in my life. Strangely, this
Speaker 1: last year, because I've been able to spend real time
Speaker 1: in one place, the longest time I've spent in one
Speaker 1: place for decades, it allowed me to focus on the
Speaker 1: work that I do with my institute, which is the
Speaker 1: not profit institute that does work in Africa, the Middle
Speaker 1: East and other places. But even though I've not been
Speaker 1: able to travel there in the same way, you know,
Speaker 1: I found it actually quite a good way of working
Speaker 1: and it's given me some periods of reflection where normally
Speaker 1: I don't get any. So as a period of my life,
Speaker 1: it's not been unhappy. But then I think you can
Speaker 1: define happiest moments of your life and those for me,
Speaker 1: which is probably a bad thing, but they're all about fulfillment.
Speaker 1: I mean, I could say it's the moment my first
Speaker 1: child was born and my first grandchild, and that's true.
Speaker 1: But when I think of, you know, things that gave
Speaker 1: me an immediate rush of happiness that they're usually around fulfillment,
Speaker 1: you know, getting a scholarship to school or getting into university.
Speaker 1: Winning the nomination for my constituency, which is a big moment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that must have been amazing. That was completely unexpected and
Speaker 1: was the last seat in the country to select a
Speaker 1: candidate and they three and never hadn't been selected, I
Speaker 1: would never have been leader in n been Prime minister
Speaker 1: in nine. You held that seat for a long time
Speaker 1: as well, because twenty five years Yeah, there's quite a
Speaker 1: long time. But then the particular moments, because with Prime
Speaker 1: Minister the highs and lows, but the highs are very high.
Speaker 1: The signing of the Good Friday Agreement on Ireland, the
Speaker 1: winning of the Olympics. So this, this happiness is fulfillment.
Speaker 1: But if you want happiness as a period of your
Speaker 1: life in which you're experiencing just day to day, the
Speaker 1: nearest I would ever get to contentment it would probably
Speaker 1: be those two periods. Really is not When I was Primaris,
Speaker 1: like when people ask you whether you enjoyed being Prime minister,
Speaker 1: I was thinking, it's like asking if do you enjoy
Speaker 1: giving birth? You know, no, not not really, like I
Speaker 1: really loved having a baby. But I think that's actually
Speaker 1: an excellent analogy, not having been prime minister by having
Speaker 1: given birth. Did you enjoy being on stage? I used
Speaker 1: to have a bucket at the side of the stage
Speaker 1: that I would throw up in when I was in
Speaker 1: the West End. I was so terrified. There's something great
Speaker 1: about it, though. But I'm interested about this premium that
Speaker 1: we put on happiness because I wonder if it becomes
Speaker 1: a catch or and rather like love, it's it's actually
Speaker 1: made up of a lot of other different things. If
Speaker 1: love is made up of I don't know, respect, honesty,
Speaker 1: shared idea is communion, community. Because I was happy on
Speaker 1: the stage, but it was also awful. But I think
Speaker 1: that's what's what's interesting about it. But that's why you
Speaker 1: can define happiness as points of fulfillment. So when you
Speaker 1: came off the stage having given a great performance or
Speaker 1: of performance you were satisfied with, that's a form of happiness.
Speaker 1: I'm an optimistic person, but I don't think I'm happy
Speaker 1: in that kind of relaxed sense of happy. That's so
Speaker 1: funny because I think I'm a happy pessimist. I think
Speaker 1: that I'm actually quite pessimistic, but really genuinely often surprised
Speaker 1: about how well things turn out. But I wonder if
Speaker 1: it's also like if it's a privilege from where we're
Speaker 1: born and where we grow up, and that the privileges
Speaker 1: that we have in our life. It's interesting about the
Speaker 1: notion of what you grow out of. Think about that
Speaker 1: a lot and certain friends have had extremely different experiences
Speaker 1: in their life who happiness was really hard for ought,
Speaker 1: and they look at it differently. They look at it
Speaker 1: as this prize in a way that they want despite
Speaker 1: the hardships that they experienced, but that does give them
Speaker 1: a sense of fulfillment. And I think the best thing
Speaker 1: in life is to wake up with a sense of
Speaker 1: purpose and go to bed counting your blessings. And I
Speaker 1: think you tend to be more happy when that there
Speaker 1: is that purpose. You know, you feel you're not just living,
Speaker 1: but you're living for something. And when you you've got
Speaker 1: to the stage where you're able despite all your challenges
Speaker 1: and you're mishaps to say, but I'm in fact blessed.
Speaker 1: Think of all the many blessings that have been bestowed
Speaker 1: upon me. And I think one of the things you
Speaker 1: try to do is you get older, is you try
Speaker 1: to come to a more spiritually balanced place where you're
Speaker 1: you can accept the things in life that are really hard,
Speaker 1: um because you appreciate there are so many people who
Speaker 1: have it harder and you've in fact been generously gifted
Speaker 1: in many ways. Just the last thing on happiness, because
Speaker 1: it's it's really interesting talking to you about that. Do
Speaker 1: you think that it was something when you were Prime
Speaker 1: Minister that in a way you couldn't expect it in
Speaker 1: any way, shape or form, So it becomes sort of
Speaker 1: collateral damage to the position that you're in that you
Speaker 1: can't really seek happiness when you're governing, like or are
Speaker 1: you trying to seek a greater happiness for a country,
Speaker 1: So that sort of fulfills that part of your psyche.
Speaker 1: You know. The truth of the matter is the responsibility
Speaker 1: is so great and you're taking decisions the whole time
Speaker 1: that are extremely difficult, subject to an enormous amount of criticism.
Speaker 1: Now by the way, you know, as my wife always
Speaker 1: used to say to me, look it's pollantry and complain
Speaker 1: about it, you know, and that is actually very sensible attitude.
Speaker 1: But you know, the sense of responsibility and the harshness
Speaker 1: occasionally of the environment. You know, I found it hard
Speaker 1: to be happy. But as I say the word, those
Speaker 1: moments because you do have such responsibility where thing actually worked,
Speaker 1: you know, where we were three or four days trying
Speaker 1: to negotiate that good Friday agreement in Ireland and after
Speaker 1: all those years and you actually get it, then that
Speaker 1: is that's something that must have been amazing. There are
Speaker 1: a very few moments though, which, as it were, whether
Speaker 1: joy is unalloyed, it's usually accompanied by a heavy downside.
Speaker 1: What quality do you like least about yourself that I'm
Speaker 1: never satisfied that I'm always restless. I used to think
Speaker 1: for a long time that was a strength, and I
Speaker 1: think it's really weakness. Do you think that you've addressed
Speaker 1: that with COVID keeping you in one place and that
Speaker 1: restlessness actually being stopped. Do you think that maybe you've
Speaker 1: learned to like it? No, No, I haven't learned to
Speaker 1: like it. I'm ambivalent about it because I think that
Speaker 1: to a certain degree, if you have an element of restlessness,
Speaker 1: it keeps you striving, and in the striving you can
Speaker 1: achieve more. But I think it makes you a difficult
Speaker 1: person to live with. I think if you missed dimensions
Speaker 1: of life by being constantly restless and in search. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's the quality I've come to accept about myself. But
Speaker 1: whereas I used to think it was a great spur,
Speaker 1: and in some ways it is, I think you should
Speaker 1: be a big and strong enough character to be able
Speaker 1: to achieve without that. Well, it sounds like you did
Speaker 1: quite a lot during COVID. No, I felt that with
Speaker 1: our institute really took it to a new level. So
Speaker 1: I'm very pleased at that. I don't I don't think
Speaker 1: you need to be perpetually unsatisfied in order to succeed.
Speaker 1: And I've subsequently in my life met a lot of
Speaker 1: people who have managed to succeed in their life goals
Speaker 1: by being very focused and determined and hard working and
Speaker 1: apply yourself and all of that is no one I've
Speaker 1: ever met, even if they make it look easy, it's
Speaker 1: never is, but they've managed to do that at the
Speaker 1: same time, as you know, just having a more relaxed
Speaker 1: that tute to life. I know, it's how do you
Speaker 1: stoke the fire and keep that forward momentum without I
Speaker 1: think being overrun by that and not being able to focus.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's just the nuance of being alive. The thing
Speaker 1: I often wonder when I meet people is, you know,
Speaker 1: is it something natural or is it something that events
Speaker 1: and people's lives have pushed them too. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think to be able to be calm in the
Speaker 1: face of whatever life brings you is I think that's
Speaker 1: a great quality. Do you think you've cultivated that as
Speaker 1: you've got older. I've tried to, but as I say,
Speaker 1: not really very successfully. Maybe the living is in the trying,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Maybe there's no actual arrival point.
Speaker 1: But it's like the other thing I always think is
Speaker 1: that is the Greek's always had it right when they
Speaker 1: talked about humorous and nemesis. That's a very interesting aspect
Speaker 1: of life that you should always as well remain rooted
Speaker 1: in a certain degree of humility about your own position,
Speaker 1: your own capabilities. Because there's no occasion that I've ever
Speaker 1: come across in any part of my life or the
Speaker 1: life of people I've known, where I have not never
Speaker 1: since has followed uberst. It's interesting. It's a big life
Speaker 1: lesson or what relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love fear?
Speaker 1: So I thought about this and I thought about it.
Speaker 1: What is its purest form? I mean, I would say
Speaker 1: parent and child is a very obvious answer to give,
Speaker 1: and now I'm a grandparent. It's the same feeling of
Speaker 1: unconditional love. Maybe what you have for your child is
Speaker 1: something I think that is not repliable. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: there's nothing that comes near it in its unconditionality, but
Speaker 1: it is to some degree also it's bound up with yourself.
Speaker 1: So in its purest form, I would say that the
Speaker 1: love that I have seen when I've seen people who
Speaker 1: dedicate their lives to looking after others in really difficult circumstances.
Speaker 1: And I think, for example, of the nuns I met
Speaker 1: in Africa looking after HIV AIDS children, many of whom
Speaker 1: at that time would die, but they would care for
Speaker 1: them through, you know, the last years of their life.
Speaker 1: And that love was unconditional but also selfless. I mean,
Speaker 1: they didn't have a family relationship, but they were able
Speaker 1: to give those children complete and unconditional love, and usually
Speaker 1: in circumstances where their parents have died. And I remember,
Speaker 1: because she and I visited an orphanage where the nuns
Speaker 1: looked after these children. I remember coming away and literally
Speaker 1: weeping afterwards because I just felt there's nothing that could
Speaker 1: ever come close to that purity. Is the distillation of love? Then?
Speaker 1: For you, is that in its most unsolid form where
Speaker 1: it's most meaningful. Because you're right, there's a huge difference,
Speaker 1: and yet they're both worthwhile. The love for your children
Speaker 1: and the unconditional love of a nurse for a very
Speaker 1: sick child. Yeah, and the love for a stranger. So
Speaker 1: that is to be able to bestow that love on
Speaker 1: a stranger, I mean, you know, obviously not strange when
Speaker 1: you start to look up them, but the fact is
Speaker 1: they're not connected with you by family. They're not friends,
Speaker 1: they're not people have done anything for you. I mean
Speaker 1: that is selfless as well as unconditional. One of the
Speaker 1: things I worry about sometimes is whether with the passing
Speaker 1: of religious belief, we will lose something of that, you know,
Speaker 1: that selfless love that I think is often found in
Speaker 1: people of faith. I don't think faith is going anywhere.
Speaker 1: I hope not, but I think it's difficult. I think
Speaker 1: organized religion is under so much pressure, and religious belief
Speaker 1: is subject to so much cylicism and criticism, as well
Speaker 1: as an inquiry as to whether it's consistent with science.
Speaker 1: I agree. I mean, I think that that's the nexus
Speaker 1: of whatever the new vendor diagram of new physics or
Speaker 1: some sends and religion, and I think it's fascinating and
Speaker 1: interesting to see what that will look like. But maybe
Speaker 1: it also forces us to do a bit more self
Speaker 1: inquiry and not be quite so externally structured, but rather
Speaker 1: to find it within yourself. Yes, that's true, but the
Speaker 1: question is whether its best religious faiths will assist you
Speaker 1: in that. I think the question really is whether in
Speaker 1: this century, because I think organized religion will continue to
Speaker 1: habits severe problems. Whether it's possible to distill and capture
Speaker 1: the essence of spirituality if organized religion declines, or does
Speaker 1: it just become just humanism. My school practiced comparative religion
Speaker 1: at Bedles. Each summer a collective or a person of
Speaker 1: a different faith would come and live at the school
Speaker 1: and they would be available to chat to and to
Speaker 1: talk to at any time. So we had Franciscan monks
Speaker 1: and Buddhist monks, and Catholic nuns and Hasidic Jews like
Speaker 1: it was absolutely fascinating. And what I really is in
Speaker 1: talking to all of them was that that yes, their
Speaker 1: particular form of faith had cultivated the spirituality, but I
Speaker 1: felt so much that it was already there and they
Speaker 1: would be doing it anyway. They would be doing it
Speaker 1: on the side of a hill, or in their own
Speaker 1: garden or at the butcher's. Well, maybe it's that they
Speaker 1: came to that spiritual understanding and enlightenment through their organized religion.
Speaker 1: I think what is interesting is that at a certain point,
Speaker 1: you know, if you study comparative religion, you realize that
Speaker 1: there are certain things that all the faiths have in common.
Speaker 1: And the question is, as people apply the force of
Speaker 1: reason and science to organized religion. Does it just obliterate
Speaker 1: organized religion or does organized religion adjust and find its place,
Speaker 1: Because in the end, what organized religion should be is
Speaker 1: a gateway to greater spiritual understanding and understanding or your
Speaker 1: own self. So do you believe the latter. Do you
Speaker 1: believe that it's possible for organized religion to shape shift
Speaker 1: into accommodate so science and reason. I'm not sure. I
Speaker 1: think it's possible. I think religious faith can go in
Speaker 1: two directions. It can either go in the direction of
Speaker 1: reaching out across the boundaries of faith in the belief
Speaker 1: that there are these things in common. Or it can
Speaker 1: go for what I would call in political terms, your
Speaker 1: core votes strategy. In other words, you turn in in
Speaker 1: yourself and you you become a sort of fundamentalist construct.
Speaker 1: Everything has a shadow, even well, particularly the really beautiful things.
Speaker 1: Maybe that always has to be there so that you
Speaker 1: keep choosing it, You keep choosing the light, you keep
Speaker 1: choosing the good stuff. Yes, as people learn more about
Speaker 1: different religious faces as well, I think they mean, certainly
Speaker 1: this has happened to me. I'm a practicing Christian, but
Speaker 1: I go to Israel a lot and so I see
Speaker 1: a lot of people of the Jewish faith, obviously because
Speaker 1: of the work I do of the Muslim faith, to Hinduism, Buddhism.
Speaker 1: I think the question all main religious face struggle with
Speaker 1: the day is how do they separate the essence of
Speaker 1: that faith and how it teaches you to live a
Speaker 1: life from the doctrine and the practice which has grown
Speaker 1: up in particular cultures in particular ways. That often serves
Speaker 1: as a barrier to understanding, certainly identity politics in America.
Speaker 1: For there to be common ground in a way, it's
Speaker 1: really tricky. But I'm not a fan of the identity politics.
Speaker 1: You know, we just watched it play out in real
Speaker 1: time of who is a fan of identity politics. But
Speaker 1: I do hope that religion can I like the word
Speaker 1: embrace because that has felt the fundament of of faith,
Speaker 1: that it can embrace an evolution, which might be counterintuitive,
Speaker 1: but it was going to happen, I think in the end,
Speaker 1: otherwise it won't, it won't connect, it won't survive. So
Speaker 1: is there something in your life that has grown out
Speaker 1: of a personal disaster? I don't. I'm not shimpol of
Speaker 1: think so I can really everybody in my personal life.
Speaker 1: I think when I was young and my father became
Speaker 1: very seriously ill when I was ten years old, more
Speaker 1: or less ended his career, and you know, he had
Speaker 1: to be looked after by my mother for several years,
Speaker 1: and then my mother died when I was quite young.
Speaker 1: I think those are the things that probably set my
Speaker 1: life on a different course. Well, I think the rest
Speaker 1: of your life emerging after an incredibly painful start, is
Speaker 1: something growing out of that hard I mean, no no doubt,
Speaker 1: conflict creates action. Yeah, I think what it did for
Speaker 1: me was create a sense at a very early age
Speaker 1: that you couldn't take anything for granted. I mean, it
Speaker 1: may be that that is the only kind of upside
Speaker 1: of that restless spirit fault that I've talked about earlier
Speaker 1: in politics and adversity. You know, I started supremely popular
Speaker 1: as Prime Minister, and then you know, obviously post nine
Speaker 1: eleven and the Art War and all of that, it
Speaker 1: was very difficult for me to come to terms with
Speaker 1: the fact that that you know, I can say I
Speaker 1: thought I was doing the right thing, but you know
Speaker 1: that the unpopularity that comes then with a decision like that,
Speaker 1: you then come to terms with the fact that you're
Speaker 1: given that enormous responsibility and there is a sort of
Speaker 1: crushing element about it, and you've got to be prepared
Speaker 1: then to to live with that. If you're looking at
Speaker 1: it from the point of view as someone who gets
Speaker 1: to the very top in a in a profession, there
Speaker 1: are things that leaves you with a mark afterwards that
Speaker 1: you will live with for the rest of your life,
Speaker 1: and that's coming to terms with that is also something
Speaker 1: that is beneficial. Well. I think it's exactly what you
Speaker 1: spoke about humility of maybe seeing the panopoly of our
Speaker 1: entire life and that those moments that have the spotlight
Speaker 1: thrown onto them, that we live around them. And obviously
Speaker 1: I can't speak to what that is of making decisions
Speaker 1: that affect people or affected people on such a huge level,
Speaker 1: but I think that's why it's so interesting to talk
Speaker 1: to so many different types of people, because we're human
Speaker 1: and the choices that we make are the choices that
Speaker 1: we make. I think it's interesting what you said about
Speaker 1: belief as well, and going into politics. You have to
Speaker 1: have belief, you have to choose a path. One thing
Speaker 1: that I did learn about politics, so I think it's
Speaker 1: an interesting lesson in life is that if you calculate
Speaker 1: too much, you miscalculate, and ias when you're looking at
Speaker 1: the way your life is going to go in the future,
Speaker 1: it's often better to follow your instinct, keep relatively true
Speaker 1: to yourself, because if you're always trying to calculate your
Speaker 1: next movement in that very narrow way, you often end
Speaker 1: up failing because the world changes in the way you
Speaker 1: didn't anticipate. It's so true. I work very briefly with
Speaker 1: Robert Almond on and commercial for something once, and I
Speaker 1: remember at lunch had one of the best conversations I've
Speaker 1: ever had anyone, where he said that you know, your
Speaker 1: life and your decision and your belief and your commitment
Speaker 1: to what it is you're doing, is this straight line
Speaker 1: and the public opinion and zeitgeist and all these other
Speaker 1: things kind of bisect and zig zag that straight line
Speaker 1: your entire life. And you know, he must have been
Speaker 1: eighty when we we've made that commercial, And he said,
Speaker 1: never once in following the zig zag did anything really
Speaker 1: productive happen except my realizing that I should really just
Speaker 1: don't follow the zeit guys, just commit commit to your line. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure that I think that's for me. I would
Speaker 1: never have become leader of the Labor Party if I
Speaker 1: if I'd simply calculated, because I definitely did not follow
Speaker 1: the traditional path to leadership. I was way out on
Speaker 1: the limit points and that looked like it was a
Speaker 1: fatal flaw, but it turned up to be. Then the
Speaker 1: leadership question came up when John Smith was the previous
Speaker 1: leader of the Labor Party. Treasity did, and the leadership
Speaker 1: of the Labor Party came up after John's death. It
Speaker 1: was then suddenly I was the right person, the right place,
Speaker 1: right time. It's amazing, It's amazing. So this is a
Speaker 1: this is a broad question, but what person, place, or
Speaker 1: experience most altered your life? And I'm going to say
Speaker 1: apart from becoming Prime Minister, because it's too it's too
Speaker 1: easy when you have such an extraordinarily rarefied experience, probably
Speaker 1: meeting someone who became my mentor at university who was
Speaker 1: actually a reverend priest, a guy called Peter Thompson, who
Speaker 1: was an Australian and who was a remarkable character and teacher,
Speaker 1: and he changed the direction of my life because, first
Speaker 1: of all, before I met him, I was an interest
Speaker 1: in politics. Secondly, I didn't really have any ambition to
Speaker 1: do anything in the world as it were, as opposed
Speaker 1: to become a lawyer or settle down or whatever. And
Speaker 1: he put my life on a different path by showing
Speaker 1: me really that unless you lived your life with some
Speaker 1: sense of obligation to try and do your best do
Speaker 1: good in the world, and it wasn't falling short of
Speaker 1: what you should be. Do you think it's a confluence
Speaker 1: of sensing something in somebody else that you speak to
Speaker 1: that a mentor see something in their mentee and speak
Speaker 1: to that part of them before they've perhaps even seen
Speaker 1: it themselves. Or is it them? Is it them just
Speaker 1: sharing knowledge that they've they've paid attention to in the
Speaker 1: world around because they've been around longer than we have. Like,
Speaker 1: do you think that he saw something or do you
Speaker 1: think that it's what he was saying through his observances
Speaker 1: ignited something in new Yeah, so it's interesting. Good question.
Speaker 1: I actually have asked myself that question quite off. I
Speaker 1: don't really know the answer. I mean, I think he
Speaker 1: saw something that he felt should be developed maybe, and
Speaker 1: he had this impact on a lot of the people
Speaker 1: around me. You know, I had a strange time at
Speaker 1: university because I never felt I really made the most
Speaker 1: of my time at university in many ways for someone
Speaker 1: who ended up as Prime Minister. I think the only
Speaker 1: time I ever went to the Oxford Union was once
Speaker 1: to listen to a speech by Michael Heseltine. Bizarrely, Oh
Speaker 1: my god, that's like the worst, that's the worst one.
Speaker 1: It was quite interesting. Actually, I was not interested at
Speaker 1: all in politics. I was actually trying to get close
Speaker 1: to a particular girl at the time because I wasn't
Speaker 1: interested in politics at all at the time. What did
Speaker 1: you read at university? Law? I mean I had a
Speaker 1: very good tutor, of very good tutors and everything, but
Speaker 1: I think it law wasn't really a subject for me
Speaker 1: at university. I enjoyed it much more when I practiced it.
Speaker 1: I would even better properly with history. But I didn't
Speaker 1: go to the Oxford Union. I didn't go on on
Speaker 1: stage or anything. But I ended up mixing with influential
Speaker 1: people on me at university. Peter Thompson was the sort
Speaker 1: of focal point of all of them. But when I
Speaker 1: look back now, I think maybe it all to my
Speaker 1: life in another way as well, which is that I
Speaker 1: became aware that there was a world beyond my own society,
Speaker 1: my own country, my own way of life, and that
Speaker 1: gave me always a broader perspective. It must be very
Speaker 1: interesting to see the position of prime minister as one
Speaker 1: of service that requires a power graph, it requires choose me,
Speaker 1: a pick me, and then the notion of service and
Speaker 1: governing one would hope kicks in, but they seem to
Speaker 1: be diametrically opposed. How one gets to be prime minister
Speaker 1: and then actually governing. Oh there's my dog um by
Speaker 1: where your question is a great question. So the thing
Speaker 1: that people find hard to understand about politicians, and you know,
Speaker 1: I never felt myself like a politician. I didn't feel
Speaker 1: different from anyone else. It's just that the environment in
Speaker 1: which you're in you realize at a certain point in
Speaker 1: time there's a bit of it that is noble and
Speaker 1: there's a bit of it that's skullduggery. And politics as
Speaker 1: all these things. Now, my theory of this is that
Speaker 1: very few people ever get to the top and politics
Speaker 1: don't mind being prime minister unless they're driven by belief,
Speaker 1: you know, and you start in politics with belief. The
Speaker 1: trouble is you're always trying to implement those beliefs in
Speaker 1: this environment and which all these other ignoble elements are present.
Speaker 1: And if you believe in what you're trying to do,
Speaker 1: you can't just pretend in some elevated way, in some
Speaker 1: saintly way, because otherwise you just get devoured, right, so,
Speaker 1: and then you never get to do the things you
Speaker 1: want to do. This is why usually art portrays politics
Speaker 1: is just a dark thing. But in fact, most politicians
Speaker 1: that I've ever come across go into politics wanting to
Speaker 1: do good, and obviously oftentimes they will fall short. But
Speaker 1: it's not that they cease wanting to do good. It's
Speaker 1: the competitive nature of it and the way that what
Speaker 1: in normal workplaces would be sort of relatively low key
Speaker 1: psychological dramas in politics is played out under the full
Speaker 1: glare of global stage. Yeah, and the choices are difficult,
Speaker 1: you know. I always say to people, the time you
Speaker 1: should trust the politician most is when they're telling you
Speaker 1: what you least want to hear. But actually that's not
Speaker 1: how most people view politics. They trust what they do
Speaker 1: want to hear. But that's the easy thing to do
Speaker 1: with politics. The hard thing is when you're particularly to
Speaker 1: your own supporters saying no, I can't do that, it's
Speaker 1: not right. And when you when you take decisions, when
Speaker 1: you decide, you divide, when you decide you to Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I really can't thank you enough. I'm just so so
Speaker 1: interesting talking to you. Displeasure all the very best, Thank
Speaker 1: you so much, good Bye. See Tony Blair's Institute for
Speaker 1: Global Change hopes, among other things, to offer in an
Speaker 1: advisory capacity, practical solutions to the challenges the world faces.
Speaker 1: Mini Questions is hosted and written by me Mini Driver,
Speaker 1: supervising producer Aaron Kaufman, Producer Morgan Levoy, Research assistant Marissa Brown.
Speaker 1: Original music Sorry Baby by Mini Driver, Additional music by
Speaker 1: Aaron Kaufman, Executive produced by Me Mini Driver. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to Jim Nikolay, Will Pearson, Addison, No Day, Lisa Castella
Speaker 1: and Unique Oppenheim, A W. K here Day, La Pescador,
Speaker 1: Kate Driver and Jason Weinberg, and for constantly solicited tech support,
Speaker 1: Henry Driver, M