The Rest Is Politics: Leading - 207. Gordon Brown: How to Fix a Fracturing World

Episode Date: September 20, 2026

What did Gordon Brown learn from leading the UK through the global financial crisis? Why do so many citizens today not belong to any civic or religious group, and how does that impact our politics? How can middle powers come together to rival the strength of China and the USA? Former Prime Minister of the UK, Gordon Brown, joins Rory and Alastair to discuss all this and more. Search IG.com to find out more and/or Look for IG in your app store. For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to goalhanger.com Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @restispolitics Email: [e-mail] __________ Social Producer: Celine Charles Video Editor: Vasco Andrade Producer: Daisy Alston-Horne Senior Producer: Nicole Maslen Head of Politics: Tom Whiter Exec Producers: Tony Pastor, Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thanks for listening to The Restis Politics. Sign up to the Restis Politics Plus. To enjoy ad-free listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members chat room and gain early access to live show tickets. Just go to therestispolities.com. That's therestispoletics.com. Gordon Brown is a huge figure in the history of the Labour Party and indeed in the history of modern Britain. He was a child prodigy. He was one of the youngest people ever to go to a Scottish university. he's political to his fingertips, sort of clear rising star through the Labour Party, entered Parliament in the 80s, was always destined for great things, and became the longest serving Chancellor of our lifetime, a decade at number 11,

and then replaced Tony Blair as Prime Minister for three years 2007 to 2010. What will history say about him? They'll probably remember that he was the Chancellor who led not just Britain, but some argue the world through the global financial crisis. You'll see that he's actually somebody who recognise. He's not necessarily the greatest modern communicator of all time, but an absolute titan of Labour politics and still making a big contribution to political debates.

We'd like it to have him. This episode is presented by IG. September feels like a reset. Summer's over, finishing here my five weeks in Kreef, diary filling up again, and suddenly you're looking at the rest of the year, thinking, am I saving properly? Am I thinking responsibly about my money? Yeah, and of course we've got the budget coming up, which is going to be one of the most important

events in the life of this Parliament. There's always something changing. But with IG, you don't need to wait for Westminster before making your own plans. Therefore, over 50 years, trusted by British investors, been through every budget market the government's experienced, helping make the money work for you. With no annual fees, zero commission on UK stocks, shares and ETFs. It's a platform that empowers your financial progress helps you stay ahead of the curve no matter what's next. I particularly like the no annual fees and zero commission. So while we speculate about what's happening next in politics,

you can get on with planning what happens next for your money. Search IG.com to find out more or look for IG in your app store. IG, trade, invest, progress, capital risk, other fees may apply. We're delighted to be with Gordon Brown. Gordon Brown would be known to all of you. He was Chancellor of The Exchequer, he was Prime Minister, but he's now age 75 still making very important contributions to public debate, not least with this book, which reminds me, Gordon,

of the days working on speeches and articles with you, because it's very similar. It's full of big arguments. It's rammed with facts and statistics, but it's also it tries to have solutions to the challenges facing the world. Well, the one thing that is different about it from the past is that we've surveyed 100,000 people in 34 countries to ask them their views about both their hopes, the fears, but also their aspirations about the kind of future they want. People feel that the world order is broken. They also feel that there's a civic recession that in their own communities, the organizations that used to speak up for them are not there in the same way in the past.

So we've got two big events, if you like. One is the breakup of the world order, which we can see around us every day with wars and everything else. And two, we've got a civic recession. And what we've found is something quite fascinating that those people who are involved in the local communities, and particularly those people who are meeting people across ethnic and religious divides, are the people who are most likely to resist populist nationalists, particularly, of course, we see that across Europe with Germany only in the last few days. and are most likely to favour international cooperation.

So there is, we know there's a link between the global and the local because global events affect people at their own communities, energy prices, the closure of the straits, all these things affect people directly, then food prices going up. But now we can see there's a link between the local and the global. If we can get more people involved in the local communities, if they can see the wisdom of bridging with people across different divides,

then a public opinion will grow, in favour of international cooperation, which of course is something that is sadly missing when we're facing up to climate change, all sorts of problems with AI regulation, and of course, big humanitarian issues around the world. One of the striking things that comes again and again in the book is how radically the world has changed from the world of your government. Again and again, you're describing a world which would have been very difficult to imagine in the 2000s.

Yes, there's about 65 conflicts happening around the world. world. It's the biggest number of conflicts since 1946, just after the World War II ended. But I described three seismic shifts in the way the world has developed. One is America is no longer the hegemonic power it used to be. And we're moving to a multipolar world. So there are many centers of decision making. That doesn't mean to say that America is not the most important and most powerful power, but it cannot have it his own way in every respect. And I don't think 20 years ago, Putin would have dared invade Ukraine. I don't think 15 years ago, Netanyahu would still be effectively in Gaza.

I remember when I was Prime Minister, he was forced out by the Americans and told to leave Gaza and agreed to do so. And I think 10 years ago, she would not be threatening to take over Taiwan. So the American leadership is under stress. And I think that's a long-term factor. It's not just dependent on Trump himself. The second seismic shift, if I just may say so, is removing. moving from a free trade world, where free trade was the key to prosperity, open trade, around the world's supply chains, a global, to a protectionist world.

And every day you hear talk of more tariffs or export bans or sanctions or something. So countries are sheltering themselves against a globalization that they didn't think has been working for them. But the third thing is even more worrying. We're moving from a rules-based order, which you talk about a lot on your broadcasts, to a power-based order where might is right, where you've got Trump, you've got Erdogan, you've got Modi in India, you've got Xi in China, you've got Putin in Russia. They see the world in terms of aggression. They see the world in terms of us versus them. I'm only doing well if you're doing badly.

It's a zero-sum mentality and mindset. And I think that's what we've got to counteract. And that's why the force of public opinion never really mattered as much in previous centuries, but it does matter now, and we've got to mobilize that, and that's why I'm proposing a number of different remedies. If you take your two things, you've got the breakdown of the global world order. You're very, very frank about Trump and the threat that he poses to lots of the things that we used to take for granted. And then you've got this civic problem as well.

There's also the problem in our politics. We've had seven prime ministers since you, and it's the seventh prime minister. Something's going wrong with politics, too. What's your advice to the seventh in terms of how he addresses these two things, the global breakdown and the civic breakdown. Well, I realized when I was Prime Minister and I had the global financial crisis that there were two things that were absolutely crucial for leadership.

And the first is you've got to get to the root of the problem that you're dealing with. You know, during the financial crisis, people thought it was a liquidity problem that the banks had. It was actually a solvency problem, and we had to understand that before we could deal with it. And the second thing is you've got to be ahead of events. So to be behind events, you're always rushing to catch up. So you've got to think two steps ahead, three steps ahead, and that's what we try to do during the financial crisis. And I think that's where we are at the moment. We've got to think two steps ahead, but we've ought to understand what's the root of the problem.

Because look, when we did our survey of British and European opinion, what's fascinating is you see it at two levels. The first is the surface manifestations. So basically what people are saying, I've lost trust in authority. And it's in the media as well as governments and it's quite widespread, the loss of trust. The second is nostalgia. People say, well, the past was better. And some people say, let's return to it. And the third is this social cohesion point that people feel immigration or the lack of integration often is a huge problem.

But when you dig deep down into what people really think about what's happening to their own lives, these are the things surface manifestations that they see about what's happening to the society. There's two things that become really obvious. And the first, and this is where Andy and others in Europe and, America as well, I've got to deal with it. First is financial disappointment. There's no doubt that people's expectations, and this goes quite up the income scale, are not being met by their experience.

They've been taught to believe that things are always going to get better. They've been taught to believe that the next generation will always be better off than the last. And now you see that there's a sense that this is not happening. So unless you solve the economic problem, and we can come to that, I don't think you can move forward in the way that we would want. But the second thing is fascinating, because I didn't. really expect to find this is that people have got a strong sense of civic decline. And so they feel that if they're in trouble, there is nobody or no organization that they can turn to like

they used to. So faith group membership dwindling, trade union membership, half, even mothers unions and women's institute, a million they used to be in Britain, now less than half a million, and go through all the different organizations that used working men's clubs, four million, now one million. So these are the British manifestations, but it's happening all across Europe. And to a large extent in America, too, which has had a history of civic organization. Can politics fix that? Well, we'll deal with economics later, but civic decline. What we found is 45% of people in Britain say they're not a member of anything. So they're not a member of a church, a faith group, a trade union, they're not a member of a civic organization, even a sporting club. In fact, the most membership

organizations are sporting organizations. They've replaced churches and they replace trade unions and so on as the main focus of local activity. But these are sort of keep fit classes and these are park runs and so and so forth. So what can you do about this? I think, yes, during the resistance in the Second World War, people at the end of it were asked, what made you join the resistance? And the biggest answer that there was, you might have thought it was, you know, I believe in this cause. Someone I respected asked me to join. And so people in their own communities who may think it's not important to persuade others to become members, I think it's really important. Because look, if half the members of your community are not involved

in anything, you don't really have the kind of community that you can call a community. And I keep saying if the physical infrastructure broke down, if the roads and the railways, there'd be immediate call for action. If the financial infrastructure broke down, like you couldn't get money out the banks, it would be panic. But the civic infrastructure is breaking down in so many different parts of the country. And we've got to therefore think about what we can do about it. So I would say, yes, encourage people to join. I think you've got to find better public spaces so that people feel comfortable in these spaces. I mean, the old sort of hall is not going to be the comfortable place for people to come to join. I think the internet has a role

to play in guiding people towards face-to-face meetings. And we're finding that in my hometown of Kikodi, that we've got a Facebook site that has 50,000, 60,000 people on it, almost bigger than the population of Kukkotty. because people outside and others are wanting to join it. And it is leading people to sort of link up with people. So internet is not all bad in the sense of, you know, there's the problem of people siloing themselves in places where they can only talk to the people that they agree with.

There's many things you can do about it. Young people particularly, if they become isolated, then it's a huge social problem. It's not just an individual problem. It's a huge social problem. So I think to encourage exchanges, young people, to meet other people. You know, Erasmus is a program that allows, British students to meet European students, but we don't actually have a program for Scots

to meet English, to meet Welsh, to meet Irish, and there's something probably we could do about that. I mean, there were attempts to think about a national citizen service, so not a military service, but an attempt to reach out to people either at 16 or 18 to create exactly those kinds of links and opportunities for more structured voluntary activity. And obviously, Scandinavians have tried this. I mean, should we not be leaning into this more? Two or three countries have it. The question is, it's optional in my view. But I do think, if you think of young people 16 to 25, then there are a million people not working at the moment. But the options available to these young people have narrowed over recent years, not expanded. We had educational maintenance allowance to encourage young people to stay on at school. And I think one of the problems of young people without qualifications now is too many have left school at 16 without any qualifications whatsoever. We're finding that,

pre-apprenticeship training is necessary because people just don't have the qualifications even to start an apprenticeship. So there's lots of things that've got to be done. But one option could be community service. It could be an option, not anything that people are compelled to do. But I think we could provide. There's so many opportunities that you can see in each community to improve the environment and improve what's happening. And out of that will emerge new young leaders. And I think we underestimate the potential of young people to be leaders in their own And so, yes, something could be done in this area. And it's really important to think that if you've got a whole generation of young people growing up,

there's no church or faith group, there's no civics in the school curriculum of any great significance. They're not getting jobs. They're not getting opportunities. They're not meeting other people. That is not a good society. Gordon, you set out the collapse of this world order, backlash against economic change, rise in protectionism, fracturing of trust, return of great power rivalry. And this really struck me, the spread of globalization whose effects we did not fully understand.

Do you think we new labor bear some responsibility or any responsibility for either the collapse in trust or the feeling, this sense that people don't now no longer feel that economic progress is for them? Yeah, I used to have quite long arguments with people like Alan Greenspan, who was a friend of mine, who was the head of the Federal Reserve and was some of the American leaders. because I always thought you had to manage globalization. So globalization was a fact. It wasn't going to change during that period. There was the opening up of markets. There was the global supply chains, which meant that it was maybe 30 or 40 countries

could be involved in the production of any one particular good like a car. So this was in many senses a good thing. And of course, a lot of people did well out of it. A lot of poverty was reduced because we opened up the world economy. But we did not manage globalization. And my arguments partly with the Americans at that time was you can either manage globalization well or badly. And if we manage it badly, there's going to be bad results. And now we are seeing some of these results because people don't feel it's fair.

They think it was a free-for-all, but they don't think it is fair to all. And we've got to do something about the, if you like, the unfairness that is attached to a globalization that ran out of control at certain points. Of course, the financial crisis was the worst aspect of it. You know, these were American banks mainly, but the British banks were also going along with us, and the German banks were also involved in this subprime markets. We just didn't have enough information about what was happening inside some of these institutions like Lehman Brothers. And, of course, they were all failing in different ways, but the main factor was they were taking risks without the capital, without the backing, to be able to manage the risks if they went wrong.

So if they invested in the property market, the minute the property market went down, these banks were completely at sea and in danger. And I've always stressed since that financial regulation that some people are trying to relax now is absolutely essential because financial institutions can easily run out of control. You had capitalism without capital. And they were running themselves without capital. And so we had to do something about it. So managing globalization is a key.

In the bailout, we had austerity. for the people and we had a bailout for the people who caused this damn thing. Is that not also what I was furious, of course, because, you know, there was no legal case apart from one against a group of bankers because of the mistakes, but also the recklessness with people's money that caused during the financial crisis. But austerity should never have happened. America came out of the financial recession under Obama and started to grow again. Britain went from growth was starting, had returned when we were in government, but the Conservatives pushed us back into recession with austerity. And then we have 10 years, effectively, even more of that, of 1% or less growth.

And so we were growing at 2.5%. And this is the key to prosperity, by the way, an economy has to grow. You've got to be able to create resources for your public services, but you've also got to create resources so that people can see their earnings rise. but our economy grew by only 1%, and that is the problem we've got today, that we've got to have an economy, both Britain and the rest of Europe, which is growing far faster than it is at the moment, while taking into account the environmental considerations that are really important. Okay, Gordon, really quick break, and then back for more. The great gain, strategic struggle between Britain and Russia.

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Bear Hunt. Available now, wherever you get your podcasts. Gordon, so there's obviously there's a deep political disagreements about this, but one analysis of why the American economy was roughly the same size as the European economies in 2008 and is now 50% larger.

And this isn't just Britain, this is Europe in general, is people would suggest that the American capital markets are much more flexible, Americans take much more risk. There's just much more money to pump into these big AI startups and that one of the problems that European and British firms are facing is a general sense that if they need investment, they need to go to the next stage. They have to go to the United States. Roy, this is a scale up problem. So we're pretty good at startups. We're pretty good at spin-offs from the universities. We've got, what, 14, 17 of the top 100 universities in Britain. We've got four

of the top 10 or British in the world. But we spin off and we start up, and then we don't seem to be able to scale up. Now, you're right. The American capital markets are deep, and Europe does not have a unified capital market. And so I would suggest that we have to do something about that. So whatever you say about the rejoining of different European institutions, we should have a European-wide capital market that people can draw on so that the companies like Oxford Leonics last year, but deep mind, all these companies that get to a certain stage in Britain,

they feel that they've got to go to America to get the capital. I mean, Herman Houser, who's the great entrepreneur in this, says that the last 12 unicorns, that's unicorns above a billion dollars that he was involved in, all of them went to America. So that is a problem that the budget could address, that we've got to do more to both encourage scale-ups, but I think there's a European scale-up fund at the moment. Britain has joined Horizon, which is the research and scientific fund, but I think we could join the financial instruments of that if we could find a way to do so. And we could then benefit from the large, it's a $5 billion scale up fund could become 10. I 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, Rose 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. We'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. seen. We'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 this. 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. Final one on economics from me, China shock 2.0. There's a real sense that Europe is in trouble because China is 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.

So 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 a 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.

But 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. 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 principle 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. They have to respond to what countries like Britain, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, Korea, Japan, all these countries. 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 share threats to life peace security, duty of states on citizenship, equitable partnership, and collective responsibility for shared global risks. It 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, 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. And so he wants to say that America, has 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, all over. He included Iceland, which probably he didn't realize he was including it because it's probably AI generated, and he had Mexico, and he had Greenland. And look, I read an interview that he did in, I think it was 2020, 2021, and he said, I love maps, he said. And Greenland, such a huge place. I'm a proper 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 that Greenland is a 14th of the size of Africa

and it's just a bit big. Even now America's voted against recognizing the reality in the new map. He'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, big, I think the key to this is recognizing 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. Korea 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. The word 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. But there are nine other countries that are now having to consider they think.

So North Korea has got nuclear weapons. So Korea thinks, if America's not. 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 may have to 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? And 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 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. If 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 under, 120 countries have now come together to deal with a treaty, to deal with crimes against humanity. But 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. It 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. 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 won. Opinion has moved in America in the last year or two, and people now want to cooperate. So we asked a 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, it's 57% generally saying that, about 60% saying that in America and Europe.

And that is really interesting that people recognize 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 the national interest. 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 and expectations of voters or social media or structures of politics. But essentially, our experience is that when we're

viewing current elected leaders. They don't... It's a 24-hour news cycle. Alistair, you must be the first to accept this. 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 McMillan, and he comes to London to meet him, and McMillan 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 of McMillan up now. I know he was an old man, but 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. And 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, 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 Farn. or EastEnders, and the Prime Minister would be expected to know what his view was on that issue. How do we break through that? Well, that's, that's... 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. So 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. 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. The government's to blame, all that sort of stuff. But 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 becomes an issue.

So I think leaders have got to think carefully about how they do lead. And 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. 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? Of course.

Of course. But look, 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 us. That was a little bit. McMillan. McMillan. McMillan, did I say it wasn't? 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, but he was dead heat. What was talking about, cleaning out the dead wood from the boardrooms

and the white heat of the technological revolution. He was good at the words. No, we've got to talk about that now because that's the innovation nation. You know, 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 TSSR2, the fighter aircraft, and we cancelled it. I think the only evidence of the innovation nation at the time was actually the Beatles. But now we've got so much evidence that it's 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. 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 are building it up. I mean, this is the issue in Britain. We tend to see issues purely through personalities. We tend to think of herself 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 science. 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, you know, what we were trying to do on child poverty, what we were trying to do on rebuilding the health service, what we're trying to do. And 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. And as a result, austerity, as a result, public services, as a result, people's standards are 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, you know, 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. It'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 Stars Well, I've got plenty of ideas. But before you go, the day you left office, you stole my tie. I've never had it back. No. He were wearing a blue tie.

You said, I cannot go out of 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. I think a very good charity benefited from that tie. and I will try and get the information of how much money was raised by the auction. And thank you.

Thank you. For the time. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. 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 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 your life, right? So this is not just a normal interview.

This is almost like interviewing 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 and politics because they are very, very difficult. And it was interesting because it was quite a sort of innocent question. Yeah. And the only one in otherwise the, a conversation about global politics,

but at the end of it, he very much teased me about that and said, 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 of the earlier, you talked about personalities, and it's not important. Yeah. And, but of course,

friendships and personalities and relationships are important. And if I track back, so because I'm so closely identified with Tony Blair, people probably aren't aware that when the two, Two of them got elected first off.

I was much closer to Gordon. Right. He was the senior of the two. Yeah. He was therefore from a journalistic perspective in a way more interesting. I worked on the mirror. 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 speech, his article, you know, he's just relentless and sort of never gives up.

So he's a stressful guy to work with. And then, of course, I think there were, there's no doubt getting away from this. I don't think he's ever fully forgiven me for backing Tony Blair, not back in Tony Blair, but in 1994, expressing my journalistic, strongly held view that Tony would win the leadership election if there were one. And Gordon would have expected you to be with him. Yeah. 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, Caesar was very English. 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, it's 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. Yeah. You know, but it was difficult.

And then, of course, when I, then we had an insidure 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 Williams, not out, you've got a real problem. Yeah. But I've always respected Gordon because he's, he is ultimately a big, big personality, big character, 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 tie is because I was there right at the end, having gone back for his election campaign. 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 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 Labor could never win again. The structures of British politics permanently excluded them. They were doomed because they've 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. But anyway, 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. 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. 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. But 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 Labour era and speeches, as you know, I think are an 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 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. I'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. The solvency against liquidity 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. Yeah. I mean, that is a problem. When he came in, he was saying, what are these live events you're doing? You know, and you said, you did the O2. He said, what, 15,000 people?

How did you 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 Keir Stammer, actually. I don't think he enjoyed the modern stuff of politics, the stuff that I'm afraid you'd, 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 it, 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 cultures, yeah. He hates it. He may have forgotten, but one of my low points in his communications director of press secretary was where in a briefing I inserted Toley Blair into a storyline in Correlation Street. So maybe he hasn't forgotten that. So he might have not forgotten 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. 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.

And it truly 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 here. 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. But the truth is I'm bored 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... He's dedicated his book to Kokodi. I love all that.

And 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. There's no, um, than others. There's no umson. I like about him. He pecks a lot in. It felt much longer than 35 minutes. He speaks so quickly, so concisely, there's so much. 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 chance that 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 organizations 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 organizations, particularly if he says we're not going to make it compost right. Second problem, I think, is that there's a real tension between the fact that he's still very much in favor of free trade or some version of free trade. And the reality of what China means for European economies is China shock to the subsidized stuff. 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 Kirstama or Kemi Badernock or Mautz or Macron in a room and say, what do you think about this? They might say, well, they're all very well in practice. But my voters, this is not their priority. 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 four – there are so – look, 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 ten 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 Beveridge Report came. People 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, et cetera, were to put together a group of people, not just politicians, with the brief to create the space for a middle power, new influence, structure 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 can see that.

Remember the Nelson Mandela Elders group? Yeah, yeah. That, a sort of bigger version of that. Yeah. And I could see somebody like Gordon playing a big role. 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 scott.

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. Rishi Sunak, if you were to interview him, and I hope we can get Rishi, also things in that way.

I mean, though he might be more tech-focused. John Major, of course, is quite interesting. And 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, 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. Final one, though, that I often notice intoing 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, around very kindly came in to see me when I was, um, the differed, sexually state.

And I remember thinking, 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,

but 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 Kokodi. 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 as Andy Burnham God is, yes, of course he has. He just said that by any Labor Prime Minister. Because I'll be honest, I've been, as you say, his state is 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 last. Apart of my question, which I thought was a very, very good question and nicely framed. How would you have answered that just to finish? Well, I would have answered it differently to him. I wasn't surprised at the answer the way he did. 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,

but you will see border peace. I would have lent in a little bit more and probably if it, but this is different. This is why he's different and I was never a prime minister. But I would have said, look, it's a bit like a rock band. It 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 Grenita thing, but maybe Tony did stay a bit too long. You know, I think I've led to it 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. Anyway, I thought it was good. I enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it.

I think our listeners would invite. Very worthwhile. Very interesting. Thank you very much. See you soon.