The Rest Is Politics: Leading - 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons

Episode Date: June 23, 2024

What are the powers of the Lord Chancellor? How important are friendships in politics? What needs to change to solve the prison crisis in the UK? Rory and Alastair are joined by Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice Alex Chalk to answer all these questions and more. TRIP Plus: Become a member of The Rest Is Politics Plus to support the podcast, receive our exclusive newsletter, enjoy ad-free listening to both TRIP and Leading, benefit from discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, join our Discord chatroom, and receive early access to live show tickets and Question Time episodes. Just head to therestispolitics.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestispolitics. TRIP TOUR: To buy tickets for our October Tour, just head to www.therestispolitics.com Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: [e-mail] Video Editor: Teo Ayodeji-Ansell Social Producer: Jess Kidson Assistant Producer: Fiona Douglas Producer: Nicole Maslen Senior Producer: Dom Johnson Head of Content: 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 the restispolities.com. Welcome to the Restis Politics leading with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Ashtample. And today we have with us, my friend, Alex Chalk. And Alex Chalk is a conservative. He's the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. So he's in the cabinet. He's got huge responsibility to Lord Chancellor, but he's also in charge of our prison system, courts, probation, sentencing. He came into Parliament 2015. He's the MP for Cheltenham.

He made a name for himself on the Justice Select Committee, where I remember having to testify to him as a prison minister myself. He, in 2019, very kindly came with me when we were trying to do various things around Brexit, which I'm not sure whether he talks about now, but anyway, we were very much I remember it well. Very much campaigning together. And then he found himself put back, into the Ministry of Justice as a junior minister. He resigned from Boris Johnson's government in protest after all the scandals, Chris Pinch's scandal. He didn't join Liz Truss's administration, but he was brought back by Rishi Sunak initially as a ministerial state in the Ministry of Defense, and then as our Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State of Justice.

And he's one of the few serving Conservative Cabinet ministers. We've been lucky enough to have on the show and very lucky to have in the middle of an election. Thank you, Alex, for joining us. Well, thank you very much for having me. It's pleasure to be. So you're also one of the few Conservative MPs who was at Rory Stewart's 50th birthday party. I was. And what a party was and you were there too. I was indeed. I was indeed. So I'm going to start on that on friendship in politics.

How many real friends do you think you've got in politics? Real friends. I'd say I've got about four or five. So people that I will stay in contact with when I leave politics. And some of those are people who just because of geographical proximity. So I happen to get on really well with the MP for Gloucester because he was very kind to me when I was coming into politics. The politics, the neighbouring constituency. And then other people I've got to know and admire in politics as well. So I think probably about four, I would say. It's not that many, is it? It's not that many, no.

Not that many, no. And it's tough? I mean, this is great. It's it LBJ who says, if you want a friend in politics, get a dog. Get a dog. I think that's true because you know, so many things are coming into tension. And I feel about politics is constantly, I'm not the first person to use the expression, but, you know, conflict of loyalty.

You're loyal, of course, to your friends, but you're loyal to your principles. You have your constituents, of course, which are at the forefront of your concerns. And I think there are a few other areas where those loyalties are in our intention. And principle always has to trump friendship, but that can be very painful. Lloyd George, I was just reading this book by Damien Collings about Lloyd George, who's brusely frank about this, said he had no friends in politics at all, all his friends were outside politics. Because in the end, he has to take down Askwith.

He's got to push himself up. Well, when I came into politics, I said to myself, make no friends. that very reason because I wanted to ensure that my mind was clear about what I had to do if I thought that was the appropriate thing to do. But you can't help, you can't help it. You can't help making friendships. And I think life is probably richer for it, but it does create challenges from time to time. That's quite sad, though. It's quite sad that that's the approach you feel you have to take. Yeah, but I think you've got to be clear-eyed when you go into politics. My background was as a lawyer, as a barrister. I was enjoying that. And I wasn't one of

those people that felt, you know, my life won't be complete if I go into politics. But I made a decision that I wanted to do it and I wanted, you know, put myself amongst the great problems of my community and try and play my poor part in improving them. But I felt that I saw coming down the track these potential conflicts. And I thought I would never want to find myself in a situation where I was aiming off from what I thought the right thing to do was because I felt that I owed some particular loyalty to an individual. So my experience politics, maybe, maybe this is completely different from the way you see it. I see it as a trade-off between having to compromise 98% of the time and then the principles kicking in the red lines 2% of time. So my life, I was often holding my

nose, voting with whips, going along with stuff I didn't really agree with. And then eventually I hit a red line in the form of Boris Johnson and a heart break. I mean, that was a similar situation because, you know, when I written my letter in 5th of July, wherever it was, I said, you know, you talk about elastic, which stretches. And then there comes a point when you pass its elastic limit it and it snaps. I think that is politics. But all I'm saying is that if you weave into that as well, not just that sometimes

you have to cleave to things that wouldn't have been your first choice, but also when you weave in the emotional aspect of friendship as well, it's just another part of the cocktail. What did you make of that period? And what was it like being in that sort of maelstrom as the whole

Johnson thing was unraveling? Politics has been incredibly volatile and dare I say even emotional for a long time. because, you know, I remember you coming to Cheltenham where there was a whole business about Brexit and the second vote stuff, which you were heavily involved in. And I think throughout that, the entire period, you talked about 2015 when I came in.

Of course, we were pitched into the Brexit stuff, which was intensely emotional. And then, of course, we had the period of, you know, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. And then so all of these things have created a very volatile environment. And I think that's part of the reason why you're seeing a high attrition rate, or certainly in recent elections,

people, they're burning through politicians at a faster rate than before because it is so intense. You have to remember, every time one of these things flares up, that means hundreds and hundreds of emails in your inbox. And I have always wanted, I know you're a conscientious MP, you want to respond to as many as you can yourself. And if you feel that obligation, it is immensely draining. And so all of these issues, yeah, they flare up on social media,

but there is a long tail of issues that you then need to deal with amongst your constituents to try to answer these problems. How do you deal with the thing that always made me feel very guilty, which was my constituents expect me to be a full-time constituency MP in Cumbria, focusing on local issues. And at the same time, I'm presenting myself as a full-time legislature in Parliament, you know, using my conscience, scrutinising legislation, voting on each vote. And I'm also presenting myself as the Cabinet Minister, going to the National Security Council, travelling around the world, visiting prisons or doing whatever I'm doing.

And I always felt really awful about not being in three places at one time. In fact, my social media accounts are a complete mess. I'm pretending that I'm simultaneously in Wandsworth Prison and in Cumbria and in Parliament. I think you've spoken very powerfully about that. I absolutely understand it. And I think it depends on individual MPs. You've got to make your own judgment about how to balance these things. Because, of course, it's a balance.

But my experience was, if you are clear to your constituents, then actually, you know, if you treat people as adults, they will respond as adults. So what I've always made a point of doing is I get into my office, 7.30 in the morning, and I do constituency work. So from 7.30 to 9 o'clock, I will get through as many of my own emails. And in the evening, from 930 to 10.30, whatever, I will get through constituency emails as well. But I will also be clear that I won't be able to respond to everyone. So, for example, if there's a massive issue that comes in, I will write the Mailchimp, which says, as a person, I can't respond to everyone, no discuracy intended.

But these are my own personal thoughts. And I'll make sure that every single one got read, but I won't necessarily do it. So if you're open and honest and transparent, then I think you can strike everything. balance imperfect as it inevitably is. You mentioned that time I was down in Chelten with the people's vote campaign. I can remember vividly you being there and I remember it vividly as well. I sense you being very nervous about what was going on. But I just wonder whether that Brexit thing ever became the elastic for you that snapped and how you feel now about you obviously I think were pretty much signed up to the idea that should be a second referendum hasn't happened. Where do you

see where we are on Brexit now. I think Rory and I are both confused as to why it's not even getting a mention in this election campaign. Just to be clear, I mean, I do remember being quite apprehensive because there was a huge amount of, as you remember, angry, there was white hot anger at the time and the nation became very divided and people were going up

their barricades. And actually I... And your constituency, tell us about your... Yes, so we voted remain in Chalham. I voted Rame. And Rory, I think I've heard you speak about this and I'm in violent agreement with you, no doubt why I supported you for the leadership. But, you know, the thing was, I felt that the 52-48 was clearly a mandate to leave.

You have to take that on the chin, but it was not a mandate for this extraordinary rupture, which is why I voted for the customs unit. It seemed to be that was a sensible move, which fell short by three votes, as I recall. Now, my personal view is those indicative votes. Three votes, just to show how close it was, that was one MP who claimed to fall asleep in the library

who was promising to vote for us, and another MP said it's going to vote for us who voted the other direction. And one who will remain named. I'm going to say, no, no, no, no, I'm not doing it. But you said, do you know what? I'll never forget it. He said, he said to me, I'll just, that's it. I couldn't be bothered. I went home.

I said, wow, you couldn't be bothered. You know, this is literally one of the most important issues for our country. But anyway, look, it was very vexed time. The thing that, just going down a very, very brief little detail, the thing that frustrated me was the timing of those votes was so long after the decision had been made that, frankly, people had boxed themselves into their positions or, to use another method,

They've gone so far up their barricades that they refused to come down and meet in the middle. And so those of us who were sitting there saying, well, hang on. I think it's a mandate for lead to leave, but not to sort of head for the exit door and some vast rupture. We were in a tiny minority. And so there were people like me speaking to the likes of Stephen Kinnock. And we were in this dwindling band of five or six people saying, shouldn't we have some sort of compromise option. But why is it vanished from the debate? I find that genuinely baffling.

But do you find that baffling? I do. I really do. I don't think it's baffling at all. I think it's because, you know, I think it's because the Labour Party take the view that there's nothing in it. And also, look, I think we've made a decision. And look, my feeling was, by the way, at the time in 2016, and I went back to go and read some of the articles that I'd written at the time. And I said at the time, look, I don't think we should do this, not because I think in 20 years, it'll be absolutely clear that it would be mad to leave.

But just because I think in the short term, short to medium term, there will be so much pain and aggravation and anguish that comes from this that I don't think it would be worth. the candle. And by the way, I'm not sure the union will survive. And I'm a unionist before I'm anything. Right. So I was right about the first one. I was probably wrong about the second one. But on any view, that decision has been made. I don't think there's any credible argument or credible appetite to relitigate. Ever. Ever. Look, I think one thing we have learned as a nation is that referenda are literally just about the worst way of deciding major issues. Because, of course, they become the proxy for people's grievances on any other thing about what you're you think about the leader, what you think about views on social care or whatever. So they're a

very, very bad way of doing things. And I just don't think there's an appetite to be pitched into a referendum. Given that we're talking all of us, what do you make about Nigel Farage? Big, big player in that referendum campaign, man who was pretty good at politicizing these things, man who we're now hearing is positioning himself as a future leader of the Conservative Party. Presumably there will be some reform-minded people who say, you know, we should be voting for him as the opposition to Starmar. I mean, try to talk me through why, presumably, you you're not somebody who's going to be voting for Nigel Farage or supporting Nigel Farage. What's the downside of Nigel Farage?

Well, look, the first thing to say is, of course, he is standing against the Conservatives. I mean, he's literally doing his best. He's using lurid language to say he wants to destroy them, all this kind of like. So I don't think at the moment there's any credible suggestion of that. Look, he's a phenomenal communicator. And by the way, it would be a huge mistake to say, right, everything this guy says is absolutely hope. He is not he is making some reasonable points, which is that sovereign nation, should be able to control their own borders. That is an uncontroversial thing to say. And I happen to

think, he's right. You know, the British people, we have warm hearts, but we want to have a secure front door. So that is a reasonable position to take. But I do think there's going to need to be some scrutiny about some of the other things he's talking about. You know, some of the stuff he's saying on the economics, it would mean sort of 70 billion pounds additional in spending, which this, which no sensible budget could properly deliver. So look, you talk about leadership, things down the track. But at the moment, he's in full on wrecking mode. And I think that means that we're nowhere near that. What in your mind is populism? What does populism represent? How would you define it? I think it's extremely difficult to define. And the one thing I would say is I think

we have to be, you know, I think you and I will see a lot of politics in a similar way. But we must never retreat into a comfort zone and say, well, of course, you know, this is all populace and therefore disregard it and somehow to poo-poo it or suggest that it somehow, you know, unintellectual. It's a great mistake. The fact is it is cutting through. And I think we have to alive to it. But there are those like me, I hope, who believe that you can address these things. You can address these things within the four corners

of the rule of law. And by the way, the rule of law is your friend in doing these things, in ensuring that those who break the law, i.e., perhaps arrive illegally, should not be put in a materially better position than those who play by the rules. That is actually consistent with the rule of law and consistent

with our international legal obligation. So it's supposed to sitting back there and say, oh, well, this is all terribly populous and therefore I'm not going to dirty my hands with it. No, no, I will engage with it, but by the way, I've got a better argument and a better solution, and I'm going to expose the frailties of that position and to do so by force of argument. Sweet reason, I think, can always successfully counter populism. But if that's the case, then you don't think we would have stayed in the European Union back in 2016? No, because look, on any view, and I was saying this at the time,

there was a real concern about a democratic deficit. Wherever you sat, and of course you took a principled position that we should stay in, I took that same view. thereafter our paths diverged about what the proper response was. But on any sensible view, there had been a movement in terms of our constitutional relationship and there was no mandate for the new situation as had emerged. And in places like Cheltenham, so we remain full of very thoughtful, intelligent ex-GCHQ people, internationalist folks.

UKIP did extremely well in the 2014 European elections. There was a democratic deficit. And we couldn't ignore it. And I think Cameron was in an extremely difficult position. And I don't criticise him at all. And by the way, I also think that he could have been given a bit more, bluntly. And I think if he had, the result would have been different. By the European Union.

By Merkel and Donald. I do think so. Because if I remember saying at the time, if they had said, look, of course there must be an emergency break. If to take, for example, the Farage argument, oh, yeah, well, look, you could have 100,000 people arrive tomorrow. There must have been a way of saying, if, in the unlikely event that was to happen, the UK must, in the exercise of its own sovereign discretion, say we are putting a pause. We are going to put a pause for whatever period. Then I think that would have provided a lot of comfort to the British people. But the whole point about the four freedoms were treated as inviolable, as tablets of stone, frozen in Aspeg.

And I think that's a great mistake. And that was a mistake. Could you envisage a day where Nigel Farage actually leads your party? And could you be in that party? As I say, this is not evasive. I just think that we're in the position where he's literally trying to destroy the way. He hates the conservatives and he's not a conservative. So I think it's really difficult.

What is he then if he's not a conservative? Obviously is his own brand. He's the Reform Party. Let's see what happens. Those aren't my politics. They really aren't my politics. He's making a fair point about immigration and it would be a great mistake to poo-poo that. But I also think that a kind of overly simplistic approach to how you deal with these things,

which is making vague blandishments but not actually getting into the detail is a big mistake. The truth is these things are complex and you've got to get into the detail. You've got to consider. How do you ensure that people are provided with legal aid? How do you ensure that that sticks in the courts?

You know, it's like I'm a lawyer, right? So I often would prosecute people and you have to do really inconvenient things like ensure that the defence are provided with the material which might, if it might reasonably be considered capable of undermining the case for the prosecution. That sounds boring until you get a horizon scandal and suddenly these things don't work.

So you have to do the plumbing. You have to do it with care. And that ultimate is what makes it stick. Alex, we've got right into the nub of things. Here we go. But take us a little bit back into who you are. Tell us a little bit about your childhood, about growing up, your values, your interests. Give us a sketch the personality of this person that became Lord Chancellor.

Oh, gosh. And why you're a Tory, which... Why? Yeah, why you're touring? Tell us about the childhood first. He always puts him, why are you to Tory when I can ask much. I don't do this since then on Labour MPs. No, actually, he asks him about the childhood and I'm not like, and why you labour straight away.

But he always does that. He didn't let Nadav Zahubh talk about his childhood except why you were Tory. Okay, well, listen, I'll try not to be due to that. Very briefly, so my grandfather was a tailor and he was, he served in the RAF and his wife. Your grandfather was a tailor? A tailor, yeah. Because you come across the super posh person. Exactly, but that's why I wanted to just kind of it.

So he was a taillard. No, no, no. Well, he wasn't actually. So he was a, he was a, he was a university grader? No, no. Absolutely. He was a proper working class tailor. Proper working class tailor.

So despite the fact your head boy of Winchester and looked like central casting. Scratch below the surface floor, you never know what you might find. Anyway, so here's the interesting thing. So he married, in war time, so he was in the RAF. He married this woman called Elizabeth Talbot. Now, Elizabeth Torbett, whoa, she was grand. So she came from one of these sort of grand families, I think dimly related, distantly related to they're of Shrews,

I'm not sure. So how did the Taylor get off with this? I'm trying to explain. Okay, sorry. So in wartime, the classes disintegrated. And it was this extraordinary melting pot where people came together

from all walks of life. But when this grand lady married Ronnie Jorke, the tailor, the family didn't turn up to the wedding because they thought this was such an appalling thing to have happened. So this was a total scandal.

She was upstairs going downstairs. Correct. Anyway, so they got married. And yeah, So I'm the spawn of that unholy alliance. Wow. Yeah, yeah. Is that interesting?

I think that's not even moderately interesting. But anyway. And tell us a little bit, you were born in Cheltenham. So you're representing the constituency you were born in? Well, absolutely strictly. I grew up around Cheltenham. So that's where my grandmother was. That's where I grew up.

And so when Cheltenham came up in 2013, I thought this is my home patch. I've got to give it a go. And tell us a little bit who you were as a child. Were you a cheeky child? Were you a naughty child? I mean, let's give an example. Alistair, for example, didn't enjoy a university. I like climbing over roofs at school

and almost fell off them all the time. Tell us a little bit about you. By the way, I had a great story about you, which I'd love to say about when you came into Parliament. Is it true that Norman Shore, where, of course, we went in our first year, that you locked yourself out, and then you locked your key out,

and then you knocked on the neighbouring door, and you said, do you mind terribly if I, and then you walked through, climbed out of the window. The fifth floor window. And then shimmied onto the next balcony and got your way back in. Is that true? No balcony.

On the window, actually. On the window. I'm here. Hero. I'm very impressed. What a hero. Anyway, so, you know, my back, I was, if I'm being perfectly candid, I was studious, hardworking, academic. I loved poetry, history, all those sorts of things and theatre.

So I can't pretend that I... Do you share his total disdain for sport? No, well, I love sports. No, no, I love sports. So I play cricket and that kind of stuff, but to no great level. So I was enthusiastic amateur, but I absolutely loved it. And as I said, we were talking just before we came on air, I've become passionate about Cheltenham Park run and being active

and I ride my bike everywhere. And do you watch sport? Yeah, no, I definitely watched sports. Internationals are very important to me. And the big sporting occasions, obviously I'll dial into the Olympics. But I have to confess, at school, I was the academic guy, the guy who was working hard. And am I right? You were head boy of Winchester and so was Rishi Sunak.

Oh, God, I knew this was going to come on. So yes, yep, that's true. And how long is how much between the two of you? I think three years, but we've never discussed it. Did you know each other? No. Not at all. I was unaware of his existence. I mean, maybe he was aware of mine.

You know what it's like at school that you know the guys in the years ahead of you, but not so much. So you were older than him? Yeah, I'm three years older. Right. But he made no impression upon you at all. But I have to say, there were 600 kids who made no impression on me in the year below because I had no idea. And the final thing then. So everybody else that we interview on this program, like, has got these amazing back stories.

I know. He's telling his dad. He's telling a grader. Blanket's kind of born blind. Andrew Raylon grew up in this very, very tough background, where Streeting's grandfather was. The deems of how he came from Iraq. I know, I know.

So is there a problem in modern politics that you're like a studious good boy who was headboy of his school, worked hard and don't have any of those stories? Look, I think it takes a lot of people to make a world. That's my line and I'm going to stick to it. And there is an issue, though. So the small thing I'd say is that, yes, of course, I haven't got a hard luck story. But it's really interesting looking actually at. my year group when I was at school.

One guy from my house, my boarding house, so it's all kind of very rah-rah, get all that. But he fell into drugs, and I'll never forget, as a barrister going to Blackfrey. I was in Blackfriars Crown Court for a trial, and I went into the court three, and there was my mate from school. He was there.

And he was gripping the rail at Blackfire's Crown Court for some drugs offence, and he'd had mental health problems and gone off the rails. And next time I checked in with him, he was dead. Another guy also got into drugs. So two of the 12 kids in my year, Both of them sadly have now died and both of them drug-related. So it's not, of course it provides privilege and of course it instills values and those values were incredibly important and issues of self-discipline and a belief and care in the world around us and playing a part in, you know, no man is an island, proper John Dunn mentality.

But also there are a lot of people who by modern standards across the educational piece were sorely undiagnosed. People who had neurodiversity issues or people who simply didn't have. addictive personalities addressed and so on. So of course it was a privileged background, but it wasn't without complexity for some of the kids who went there. On the point about you, just going back to your grandfather, do you think that class is a big thing still in our society? I genuinely don't. And really, well, there are possibly aspects of it. But I say this, I went to the United States and I do that in this role, the G7 or whatever, and you start to look at your own country with a bit of perspective. And I went to the United States.

States, which by the way, all sorts of observations I can make about that, which you might want to come on to. But I was sitting there in the British Embassy, and we had the great and the good, we had everyone from Supreme Court justices to the Attorney General. And by the way, the UK has massive convening power, lest we should never forget that. But I was looking around the room and it was overwhelmingly white and it was overwhelmingly male. And I remember thinking, actually, in Britain, of course we have things that we need to improve. But this is by and large a pretty fair-minded country where people principally are interested, not where you're from, but where you're going. And I take such pride when I look at the diversity around the cabinet table,

which I think is well understood. But by the way, would not be possible in most peer nations. It just simply would not happen. But I think we give ourselves very little credit for that. And I think whilst there are also proper concerns about background, that's absolutely right. I do think this is one of the more equal societies on the face of the earth and we should take some quiet pride in that. Just on the law, you've a couple of times mentioned the importance of the rule of law. You can't have been totally comfortable with

the way this Rwanda debate has been handled. Look, I've always said that, so I believe in the rule of international law, one of the things that is precious little discussed is which country has the second largest legal sector in the world. It's ours, right? It employs

huge numbers of people. There are firms from 40 different nations in London alone. It's a great engine. So all the oligarchs can get into the courses. Well, no, no, but the point is it's hugely, it knows. We are very tough on that. But anyway, the point is we've got the commercial court. It's fantastic.

We have wonderful judges and so on and so forth. The reason why I say that is because we have done a huge amount in this country to uphold the international rules-based order, possibly pound for pound we've contributed more than any other nation. And that is an enormous part of our soft power. So international law matters. It's also incredibly important, you know, to paraphrase Edmund, from the 18th century.

A state without the means of some change is also without the means of its conservation. We have to evolve. And I think that's incredibly important. The law should be a living instrument. And so what I've said, and I think not unreasonably, is yes, the framework of international law matters. But we also have to ensure that it remains modern and relevant. And it must be right that sovereign nations can protect their borders consistent with international law. So what we are seeking to do, yes, I accept as novel.

I accept as contentious. And I accept as, you know, it is difficult. But I also strongly expect that in 10 years from now, this will become pretty mainstream. And whether you're looking at France or Austria or Germany, there will be an element of offshoring in the way that they seek to be. But you can't be comfortable with being in the position where it's possible that we could leave the European Convention of Human Rights and be in a league with Russia and Belarus. Well, we cannot be. No, no, but we have to take this in stages. So the whole point about this policy is that people like me, having thought about this,

extremely carefully, by the way, and dissected every clause of it and say, to what extent is it consistent with the human rights? Insofar as we're taking, disapplying that part. And you genuinely think it is? Yeah, so I do. I think, I think it is properly arguable that it is, that it remains within the four corners of international law. But I accept its novel.

I accept its contentious. But I've looked very carefully to see whether this can be said to be consistent with the ECHR and our duties that exist under that. Because, you know, lest we forget, who was the person who wrote most of it, it was a British was a Scots lawyer, as you know. And a lot of these values, right to life, sounds a bit like a British value to me. Prohibition against torture and human and degrading treatment, sounds fairly British. Prohibition against slavery, the right to liberty and security.

So what I'm saying is that it can be done within the four corners of international. And the final thing I wanted to say is, look, there are approximately 100 million people on the move around the world as we speak. And that figure is likely to go up. Look at the 50 degree heat in the Indian elections. look at the extraordinary and accelerating pace of climate change, there's got to be a 21st century solution which is consistent with the rule of law. And that's what we are moving towards. Right, Alistair and Lord Chancellor, let's have a quick break and come back afterwards to talk about prisons. Hi everybody, it's Dominic Zavrick here from The Rest is History. Now, some of you may have

heard me on your show, the rest is politics when Rory was away and I was filling in and enjoying Alistair Campbell's tremendous banter. And I'm back to the tell you about our new series on The Restis History, which is all about Britain in the 1970s, a period with a lot of uncanny resemblances to our own. So right now we're living through a moment when oil shocks generated by war in the Middle East are rippling through the world economy, when Britain feels like it's sunk in a bit of a malaise, people are arguing about Europe, the government has got a few issues with the trade unions, and we have a kind of, I suppose you'd say governing elite, a kind of political class that is really struggling to come to terms with

all of these issues. And people are asking if Britain is governable at all. So there are a lot of parallels between that Britain that I'm describing, which is our Britain and the Britain of the mid-1970s. So in this series that's coming out on the rest is history, we'll be looking at these and other issues. We'll be talking about the rise of Margaret Thatcher, obviously a colossal figure in our political life even now, whether you love her or loathe her. And we'll be talking about the very first Brexit referendum of 1975, a subject that I'm sure Rory and Alistair will have strong

opinions about. We'll be talking about the fall of the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson and we'll be talking about one of the grimmest moments in Britain's economic history, the moment in 1976 when we had to go cap in hand, as people said at the time, to the

International Monetary Fund, the IMF for a then record bailout. Now if that sounds good to you, how could it not sound good to you? Of course it sounds good to you. We have a clip for you to listen to at the end of this episode. And if you want to hear more, just search for The Rest is History, wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get to prisons.

Yeah. Something that Alastra and I both care about. So I found being prisoners, the most satisfying, frustrating, interesting, worthwhile ministerial job I ever did. And you did that job, and now you're the kind of boss, the person he does that. Tell us a little bit about your journey with prisons, what your first sense of prisons were. And maybe just start with what was the difference between the way you saw them when you were a lawyer and how you began to see this minister. Because I sort of remember my first conversations with you, you saying to me before you were prisoners, minister, well, Rory, come on.

I was a lawyer. I locked up a lot of people. And then you became prison minister. So tell us a bit about that, Jenny. Well, I remember, funny a very, very clearly when you became prison minister. I remember going into the library in the House of Commons. and you had taken the trouble to go to the librarian and you'd asked for all the great tomes

and what the prison reformers had done and there was stacked on this table, this huge pile of books. And I remember being incredibly impressed because what we also had discussed is said, Ronnie, why have they made you prison minister? But you were this guy, obviously this expert in international affairs.

And I think he was saying, I don't quite know. And then you took to it. And I don't know whether it's because you read all those books. And you recognise that there is this fundamental tension that runs throughout politics, the rights of the individual as against the security of the state. And how you balance those things comes into the sharpest of focus in the way we handle our detainees. And so, yes, I had spent a lot of time in prisons.

HMP, Elmley, I spent too many years of my life or hours of my life in HMP, Elmley speaking to people. But you're very conscious when you're defending someone, you're sitting there in a dank cell. Hang on, the state puts you here. What are the obligations on the state? And I've always been very, very mindful of that. And I remember also you, I think, tried to get them to bang you up in prison. I tried to do the same thing as prison's minister. They hate it.

And in fact, they declined to let me do so. So I did the next best thing, which I spent three days in a gritty London prison because I wanted to see what was going on. And so fundamentally, there were things which I found troubling. And I challenge anyone who is basically a compassionate human being not to feel troubled by it. So, you know, when people are remanded in custody awaiting trial, right, they of course are innocent until they're proven guilty. I remember seeing some guy in a prison and he'd been in there for eight months because CTL's custody time notes have been extended by two months. And the regime during that time is he'd spent a lot of each day on lockup. You know, that's, that is something that should trouble anyone.

And he's supposed to be innocent until he's proven guilty. Right. So he could be acquitted. The jury could say, hang on a second, we're slinging this. There's nothing to it. And then he doesn't get his eight months back. No, he doesn't get his eight months. And I should just add, incidently, our custody time limits in England and Wales are lower than they are in France.

in France, my goodness, people are detained pre-trial for years sometimes. So actually, our six-month CTLs are broadly right. But you've always got to be conscious that these people are in the custody of the state. And that, of course, weighs heavily on me, as I know it did, as I know it did on you. We're in the middle of an election campaign and Labor came up with a lot of stuff on prisons. And we, Roy and are both being complaining that there hasn't been enough folks in the prisons in the political debate. But I just want to generally, where you think we should have prisons in the political agenda and specifically what you thought of some of the proposals they had. Just sort of stepping back, looking at this for 10,000 feet. So we brought on quite a lot of prison

places since 2010. So the total, because they do say it's about 88,000 people. That's 4,000 or more than that, higher than it was in 2010. And indeed, we are rolling out the biggest prison building program since the Victorian era. So we've built HMP5 Wells, H&P Fosway, which I say passes my French foreign minister test in the sense you would happily walk around with your counterpart and say, voila, look at that. These are really decent, clean, rehabilitative prisons, and they're absolutely fantastic. And will any of the existing estate get shut down? Well, yes, so that does happen. So sometimes they come to the end of their life. But what we're not in a position to do is to discontinue or to shut down the entire Victorian estate. Some of

it's actually still very, very good, but there are other bits that you would want to get rid of. So we've got another prison that's coming on next year, HMP, Milpsych. So the point that Labor made, which was a fair one, which I said, hang on, there have been. some prisons which have been bunged up in planning. And she's right about that. Shewana's absolutely right about that. And that has been frustrating. But it's also correct to say that of the three which we're going to build, two have now got planning and the third one will get planning fairly shortly.

But my solution to that has been we need to get additional money from the Treasury to ensure that we've got a pipeline way in advance so that we're applying for planning permission like years and years in advance as opposed to hoping and expecting is what they call optimism bias that you're actually going to get it. So optimism bias has been detonated in the way. the MOJ because it's simply not there. We got rid of that. So my solution has been to get the pipeline, but that wasn't an unreasonable point. What was less correct is to say, oh well, there wouldn't be pressures on prison

places without that. That's not the case. So those were expected to roll out on 27, 28. In fact, the fact that we've lost a year doesn't make the blindest bit of difference in terms of the pressure today. And what about going to a completely different mindset on the whole kind of prisons, you know, Norway, Denmark, a completely different approach. So there's a... Are we just never going to do that in this country, do that? I think first of all, you have to recognise that in Norway and Denmark, there are different cohorts of criminals.

So you have to... Judges will sentence based upon the people who are coming into their courts. My view has always been, we have got to ensure that there are prison places for the most dangerous people. You've got to take the most dangerous people out of society. The question is, should we be locking...

We've got to lock everyone up where we're scared of. Do we want to be locking everyone up we're cross with? And that fundamentally crystallizes the issue. My whole approach to be at this is follow the evidence. Strip the emotion out where you can. So that means I think for those people who commit appalling crimes, think, for example, the Wayne Cousins case, the poor Sarah Everard was abducted, appalling things done to and then killed.

Absolutely right. You should get a whole life order, right? So we have legislated so that there are more whole life orders because I think that is consistent with what the British people expect. When I started prosecuting, the standard, if you could say that, tariff for a murder was 15 years. Now, you wouldn't automatically release after 15 years, but you could be if the parole board said that you were safe.

I think a lot of people nowadays say, what, 15 years? That's a joke. That's simply not enough. So I think it's perfectly sensible for those most serious offences. They get locked up for longer. But when you're talking about those offenses, say for the sake of argument,

driving was disqualified, right? That carries a custodial sentence. Now, if you, Rory, took leave of your senses, maybe work was going badly, relationship breaking down, whatever it was, and you drunk too much, and you, therefore were disqualified from driving because you've just been a couple of micrograms over the limit,

But you're off the road, get off the road. And you're told at court, do not drive that car. But you have a terrible row with someone. You're at rock bottom. And you drive to go and see your best friend because you just, anyway, you do it. And you get caught. And the magistrates are considering whether to send you inside. Now, if you go inside for a short sentence, that is your life wrecked.

Your reputation is gone. Your relationship's gone. You are absolutely at rock bottom. And the chances of you being able to contribute to society are dramatic. So do they send you inside? Or do they say, this crosses the custodial threshold, Mr. Stewart, but we are going to suspend the sentence. So you will still have a custodial sentence against your record. Don't, you know, make no mistake.

But you will do this work, this unpaid work to repay your debt to society. You will also, by the way, go on an alcohol rehabilitation course. You will have your freedom restricted so you can't go and watch the football on the Saturday. And if you break any of these, if you break any of the prison game. Or not, if you break, or whatever it is, you can't get in the British Library on a side. And if you, and if you breach any one of these conditions, you will, you will hear the clang of the prison game. Now, I think, by the way, that sounds like it could be common sense, but also the evidence shows that the chance of reoffending for a short sentence, it's 55% if it's an immediate custodial sentence under 12 months. It's 25% if it's suspended. Okay, so go ahead of the evidence.

Coming on this. So obviously, David Gork and I, before you, tried to get rid of short sentences for exactly that reason, you know, that I said short sentences were endangering the public. You were more likely to reoffend with a short sentence than if you weren't sent a person at all. Boris Johnson came in. The whole thing was then suspended. Later, Dominic Raab didn't want anything to do with it. What was the politics of trying to get back to this position that we thought we were in in 2018? What was the politics? What? Look, I as a backbencher, I talked about this.

And incidentally, you talked about the kind of the trust interregnum. So in the most underreported speech ever. So I'd been a minister, as you indicated, and then I left and so on. And then there was party conference. I thought, here I am. I can say what I think. So I went out and I talked about the precise issue. And I said, follow the evidence.

and I was speaking to the conservative audience and they came with me. They said, hang on, I completely get the logic of this. It makes sense. Because by the way, the cost of these prison places is like 650 grand for each place to build it and then 47,000 pounds a year to incarcerate. So it's a huge cost to do it.

It sounds like sending someone to Winchester. Anyway, very, very expensive. And so what I was fascinated is people can be persuaded. And so I thought, so I came in and you tried to make your mark as a minister and you try and say, listen, this is what I think we need to do. So that was the problem. proposal. And there are a number of things that I wanted to do when I came in. We needed to

improve the fabric of the courts. And Rishi was great. He unlocked some money to put into the courts. And he was fantastic about those things and really impressive and listened to the evidence and so on. So it wasn't so much politics as kind of, I think this is a good thing to do. Is the criminal justice system in good shape? So here's a really, really important point to mention. I know everyone is kind of bored of talking about COVID's, ah, since absolutely ages ago, blah, blah, blah. But there are few areas in our system that are more susceptible to that. And I'll just explain why. So people talk about pressure on the prisons, for example. Sometimes people don't think, well, what is the reason for the

pressure on the prisons? The reason is this. During COVID, we made two fundamental decisions. I remember sitting around the table in the MOJ. One, should we release a whole load of people from custody? Because Public Health England, Public Health Wales were saying, look, ministers, you are going to lose thousands and thousands of people. There is no conditions which are more susceptible to an airborne virus in prison. And so they said you should release 16,000 people. Now, by the In a way, California, which is a similar size population to England and Wales, released 11,000. France released 13,000. We released 200.

Now, as it turns out, although every death is a tragedy, the numbers that died was fewer than 200. And that's because prison officers did a spectacularly good job at keeping them safe. So first decision was, should we release loads of people? And the decision was made no, because that would have prioritised prisoner health over public safety. Point number one. But the second issue is, should we get rid of jury trials? Because that was seriously being considered. And you might remember they thought about it in Scotland.

and there was much human cry. And Robert Buckland and I said, absolutely no way. So jury trials are the lamp of our liberty, absolutely essential to ensure that we have balance and that the rights of freeborn Britons are upheld, without sounding too grandiose about it. It does sound quite grandios. But it's very important.

It's very important. But the problem is this. It means that the cases stack up in the system. And remember we talked about people awaiting trial in custody? The numbers awaiting trial in custody have gone from 9,000 pre-pandemic to 6,000. So you're carrying those additional folk in jail. And so that is a really important aspect of it.

So even though you're building a load more prisons, if you make that decision to hold on to your principles, there is a price you pay for that. But what about access to justice and legal aid cuts? So I sometimes say that I'm a legal aid lawyer on a career break. I care passionately about legal aid. And you will never hear stuff that I had to hear, by the way, when I was a practitioner going off down to Snerbrook Crown Court

for a mention at £46,50. plus VAT, which is literally what you were paying, where we were getting maligned by people I won't name unless you push me in government at the time say, oh well, these are fat cat lawyers, snouts in the trouble. It was complete rubbish. It was that. Do you want me to say? Yeah. Well, he's a perfectly old.

All right guy. But so Tony Blair was saying that we are going to derail the gravy train of legal aid. That's what he said. What job was you doing then? Well, he was prime minister. When he was prime minister. Yeah. He said, in Brighton.

Terrible. He said we're going to derail the gravy train of legal. And do you know, absolutely. And do you know what? I got named and shamed because I'd earned a certain amount within a certain month. So they would name and shame lawyers. It was awful. It was awful.

And Charlie Falkner, to his great credit, wrote an article in the Times saying that we were wrong to vilify legal aid barristers. And generally, these guys do exceptionally important. It's hard. Why have you not written similar articles saying that the drawers are wrong? To keep going in here, I'll hold on. Hold on. No, no. Well, come back to that.

So that's a second. Come back in a second. But on the issue of funding, we've injected $141, up to £141 million into legal aid. Also, when I came in strictly into the department in 2020, I wanted to roll out something called ELSA, early legal support and advice. I gave up a snappy name so people would remember it. But the idea of trying to promote access to justice, because that's how you ensure that the laws that are set out in Parliament

don't become a dead letter because people can actually enforce them. So critically important. So we're actually now housing legal aid. We've expanded that. We've also expanded family legal aid because ultimately too many people going into court as litigants in person that clogs the system up, creates delays. So we have looked to expand that. But Alex, a lot of barristers listening to this will think you're whitewashing. That the system is really in crisis.

It's creaking. You read the secret barrister. It's shocking. Right. So many of my friends who are lawyers are in a boiling rage. Courts horrible, prisons, horrible, systems, horrible. What's the problem? There's a COVID problem.

that has it going to be fixed. So there are a number of issues. And first, the condition of the courts was, what is, is too poor. And that's why one of the first things I did when I came into government, I said to the Prime Minister, we must have, please, can you reopen the spending review, which is you know, Alison, well, you both know it's an incredibly difficult thing to do to get additional £80 or million to go into the court estate.

And he did that for me. And that's making a huge difference. That's really important. We need more practitioners. That's the other critical... You need more. And much more money, right? Yeah, well, so we're running...

Because 18 million isn't enough, right? Hang on, we're running maximum sitting days, which is a... You know what that means? So we need to have more practitioners as well. But also what we're doing is for those people who are awaiting trial, we've rolled out a thousand independent sexual violence advisors and independent domestic violence advisors so that they can support those individuals through the court process.

So there is plenty more to do I accept. Just a step back for a second. Sure. So regardless of who gets elected... Labor or conservative. We are in a situation where tax is the highest rate ever and our public services are creaking. Prisons are a horrible state.

NHS, some target seems as some of the worst performance in Second World War, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And all these parties are going at the election saying they're not going to increase taxes, right? So if Labor gets elected, I'm afraid in this podcast, we're now beginning to come for the view that Labor may get elected, I don't want to pull you on that, because of an election campaign, But were Labor hypothetically to get elected, surely they're facing a massive financial black hole.

Where are they going to find their money from to deal with all this stuff? Well, I mean, I think they've been quite careful in the wording that they've used. There's no taxes on working people. But you're sitting there can hang on a second. Well, what about corporation tax? What about capital gains tax? What about inheritance tax? What about council tax?

So I think there are a whole load of things that there will be people worrying, you know, or pension allowances and so on, worrying that they'll be going after that. So I think that is a genuine and legitimate concern. Plus, of course, some of the spending... You're not going to say they've got a secret plan to put £2,000. Some of the spending commitments that have been made. So I know that apparently the $28 billion is not happening, but I think they still want to spend between $4 and $5 billion. So there are big spending commitments,

and I think people are rightly and reasonably concerned about that. But you make a point. This nation has had two sucker punches in the form of the pandemic, which had this sort of scarring effect. There's no doubt about it. And also the war in your... Ukraine, which had this impact on national income. Now, we are healing. So you talk about the situation in the courts. It is difficult. There is real strain, but I think we can heal our way through the

system. And I think it's also the case if you look at, you talked about waiting this. In fact, I think they've been going down for several months on the bounce. I look at Cheltenham in my patch. We've got a brand new hospital wing, 17.2 million pounds. We're doing an additional 3,000 appointments every year. So the system is slowly healing. And it's about whether we can stay the course. Now, I know you'll say I'm absolutely your message, but I do believe this. We have genuinely in my department about how we want to ensure that we stay

on increasing the number of women who can get justice for allegations of rape. We're prosecuting more people for rape than in 2010. We can have more independent sexual violence advisors. We can ensure, for example, that more serious offending is caught, for example. We outlawed upskirting, non-fatal strangulation.

We are the party that brought in coercive and controlling behaviour as a specific offence. There's a lot that we're doing. A lot. want to do, but we do have to stay the course. I'm loving the passion for the job and also the fact that you're speaking like somebody who thinks they can be there for quite a long time. We're in this campaign. I've fought a lot of election campaigns, as you know, and I fought in winning campaigns and I've fought in campaigns where it's felt a bit not so sure, but I've never fought in a campaign where we've got in 20 points behind at the polls. And I'm just wondering how you feel about that.

I'm not going to ask you to say what, because you, I know you're not going to say anything that's suggest the Tories can't win, so I'm not going to bother with that. But I just wonder what the psychology is when you really do, you must be feeling this is like the last days. So my feeling is, and I speak through the prism of my own electoral fight in Cheltenham, that my job, as somebody who loves democracy, you love democracy, whether you win or whether you lose, right? You've got a really, is you have to set out to the people what your record is, and I've got a record in Cheltenham, saving the A&E and all those things, which I won't bore you with now.

and then say what I want to do if I'm re-elected and then you entrust the people with the decision. And I think it's perfectly reasonable in the national debate to say, look, this is where we want to go. So we want to ensure that we have the triple lock plus on the pensions and all the things that you've heard about. It's reasonable to set that out. And then you allow the people to make the decision.

But I think Rishi is right and reasonable to say that there is much more clarity about what we're proposing to do rather than the Labor MingVar strategy. And I think over the coming weeks, people will not unreasonably shine a remorseless forensic spotlight on what Labour want to do. And I hope, by the way, on what reform would do to the point we were making earlier. But the point about the psychology, it's like, you know, if you take the sort of sporting analogy, it's just so much, psychologically, it's so much harder if you think you're on the back foot. Yeah, well, what I was trying to say rather inarticulately is I don't look at it that way.

I just, I just say. Do you think you can win? Do you think you can win your seat? Obviously the underdog, and I'm definitely the underdog in Cheltenham. But all I would say is in Cheltenham, I've been the underdog. I'm probably the answer to a pub quiz question. Paddy Power helped me on to lose. There are other betting agencies available in 2015, 2017, 2019. What was you've been raised last time?

981 was 98 more than it needed to be, honest. But what I wanted to say is that my constituents are some of the smartest people anywhere in the country, and they will work it out for themselves. Lots of ex-GCHQs, some very, very smart people there. And they won't be told. It's not like, oh, well, the pulses say, Sharks can lose. They'll work it out for themselves. And just on the, we mentioned Johnson and Truss, I just wonder, and you're obviously very, very

fond of Rishi Zunak and think he's doing a better job probably than I would. But if you do lose, would you say that his predecessors are a greater cause of that than him? I think that Rishi had a very difficult inheritance. And I think it's fair to say that he has had to tried to deliver in a short period of time. He's had to restore, I think, a lot of trust. I think there's no doubt that the immediate economic context was difficult. And I think it would have been astonishing to have had a complete turnaround. And I genuinely think he's done a good job and he's done the best he could in a very difficult circumstance. And I just say this. I sit around the cabinet table with him and sometimes I'm there one-on-one if we're doing

something to do with prisons or whatever. And I have never seen it. anybody who understands the detail more than he does and who cares more and who tries harder to get to the right result. And to err is human, I'm sure he won't have got everything right and they're things that should have been done differently or not at all. But his heart is in the right place. He's got the brain the size of a planet. And, you know, that really resonates for me. Final one for me. Looking back on being a politician and trying to get out of election. You or me. Looking back. You or me. Well, you say, I mean, Rory, you can't do this to the guy. He's just in the middle of an election campaign.

Give us a sense of what you've learned about politics that surprises you. And try not to make it too schmaltzy and positive. Give us something frank and weird and revealing about what this job is really like for the listener. Well, look, it's interesting to use the word reveal. I'm not the first person's used this expression, but someone else did and I picked it up. But politics reveals. There's something about the intense pressure of it, that it shines this remorseless spotlight on your weaknesses as well as your strengths.

And so you find out a huge amount about yourself. You find out what your breaking point is. You find out how you have to balance these competing issues. You know you want to get, in my hospital, I wanted to get some more scanners in my hospital. I knew the following day I was going to have to meet the health secretary. I also knew there was a vote that night on something I didn't particularly agree with. So where does my loyalty lie? So it's this constant challenge of what is the ethical and the right thing to do

how do you balance these competing considerations? And I found that immensely difficult. But I hope if, in many years from now, Rory, that I come to be looking back, I still do think, having travelled around the world, that for all the failings, all the shortcomings, we have something quite special in our democracy. And I think this event today is just a small part of it, that freedom of speech. And it's been a real pleasure to be able to join you. Well, you sound like you're ending the podcast, but I haven't asked my father.

No, no, no, I wasn't. Because I just wanted to ask you, finally, I alluded to this earlier, but I do find it very troubling that this guy that you've described, Ritchie Soonak, with the brain the size of the planet and values and all this. And yet he does seem to have brought into this strategy that the Conservative Party and the wretched Andrew Gilligan should go through every case that Kirstein was ever done as a lawyer and then try to make that part of a political campaign.

That is wrong. Look, I think all I consensibly say is everyone, as a right to a defence. I've defended. I prosecuted more than I defended, but everyone's a right to defend. And that's really important. I'm more interested in records actually in office,

and that's what I will always focus on. So, I mean, I think he has done some things, which are wrong, right? So we've got foreign national offenders, and he wanted to stop the plane of foreign national offenders taking off. So for my part, that is what I will always focus on. But if in the next TV debate,

Rish, you would just sort of throw out a case that Keir-starmer defended, you would not be happy about that. Well, I've made my point. Well, thank you for being here. Thank you for being the first serving cabinet minister to come on during the campaign. That's right. Lord Chancellor, thank you very much for coming with us on the podcast today.

And I hope you, I hope you enjoy the rest of the campaign. Thank you, Alistair. Thank you, Rory. Thank you. Right, Alist Joe, Rory. I quite liked him. Did you? I did, yeah.

What I liked about him was here we are in the middle of election campaign. There was no point in me going on about who do you think it's going to win and all that stuff. That's absolutely pointless. But I thought he had real. passion and enthusiasm for the issues. We probably could have pushed him harder on what's actually happening inside the criminal justice system, which I think we both think is a bit of a disaster, but I was very, very keen to hear his assessment. And I think he's clearly somebody who thinks about it pretty deeply. Probably does feel very, very uncomfortable with some of the stuff that his government

does. But anyway, you know him a lot better than I do. Yeah, I mean, so I'm, I, obviously he's a friend that I like him very much. I think that there's something which, if I was having a drink with him, and it wasn't the middle of election campaign, I probably would have pushed him more on, which is, of course, he feels that he's arrived at these positions as positions of principle. But he's also part of a government and a cabinet and a team. And I felt definitely as a politician that you can convince yourself that something's right more easily if it's the thing that your government's doing. And I wonder, what's he going to do if the government comes out the next week or so and says that it's going to withdraw from the European Court of Human Rights? He just gave this whole speech about how it had been created by Tories, created by the Brits, talked about all these things. And yes, he and my friend Victoria Prendezcy Attorney General endorsed the Rwanda policy.

And, you know, I'm sure they did it in good faith and went forensically through all the information. But again, they're lawyers. They're used to, I'm just being unfair, but they're used to preparing the best case they can. And I think sometimes, if I was pushing over a drink, I'd say you prepare the best case you can. You begin to convince yourself of it, particularly if it's the case that you're... No, he put a very partial view as to what the policy was. And he put a pretty partial view of Rishi Sunak's capacities as well. What I will say, though, is that he's been a very interesting, I think good MP and Chelten.

He did something which you'll remember during the election campaign. When there was a huge demonstration outside his constituency office, there was a lovely moment where he stepped out into the middle of the crowd, took the abuse, took the questions, really worked the crowd. Very brave. I'm glad he talks about the customs union. think very, very brave. So this was in 2019, things were very raw. Endorsing the customs union was unbelievably unpopular with the Conservative Party. And he worked with me to whip the vote, to vote

with Labor. We got 32 Conservative MPs to vote with Labor. We put it together as an amendment in Ken Clark's name, because we thought that would sound more oppressive. But basically, it was me and Alex running around, and I've always been a bit embarrassed to raise it, because I thought it would blight to Alex's career as he continues to send up the Conservative Party. But that was a bold thing to do. And there were lots of other people who when push came to shaft, let us down, went home, fell asleep in the library, changed their votes, and he stuck to it.

Yeah. That Cheltenham thing was, it was, I'd forgotten about it, but what happened was we did, when the people's vote campaign was kind of really in its ascendancy, and getting big crowds, we had a lot of money coming in. So we did this massive, big event in Cheltenham. and because he was the MP, I think he wanted to be there, and I was trying to persuade him to kind of, you know, do a big sort of thing,

which he wouldn't do. And he was very, he was kind of, he was courageous in that he was being there, and it was obvious what he was trying to say. But I sensed he was very, very nervous about the whole thing. Do you think it's a, listen, just honest, do you think it's a problem for the future Conservative Party, people like him and me who seem kind of obviously posh from these kind of privileged backgrounds who aren't able to talk about our hard luck stories

and our working class roots and this kind of. I don't think so. I think I liked his story about his granddad. No, because I think there's this, you're not hiding anything. I think there's a problem if somebody feels, if they feel they have to invent a backstory. No, I don't think that's a problem. I think there is a problem with the current makeup of the cabinet that it feels very, very wealthy and very detached from the real world. But no, I don't think he's got that problem. I think he came up as very, very sort of warm and personable.

I mean, do you think he's the sort of politician who, if he does lose his seat, would feel that he kind of has to come back? Or do you think he'll just think he'll move on to something else? I don't know. But of course, he loves the law. And I guess one of the advantages for MPs who are lawyers is they can go back to the law. Whereas many, many other MPs, when they lose their seats, that they really struggle to work out what to do. I guess he'll be able to go back to it. I was also pleased that we haven't really got into the root of law in our legal system and our courts and things.

It's such an important part of our society. Boy, does it not feature an electoral campaigns, all that stuff that he's doing. It's the other thing also that I feel we never really look at the detail of what people do in ministerial jobs. We look at their voting record. We look at austerity. We look at the economy. But nobody tries to really assess the micro details. And I guess one of the strange things about it, which I always experienced my life, is on the macro level, things are pretty catastrophic.

The British economy has contracted since 2019. Our productivity is terrible. But every one of the, or not everyone, but a lot of these ministers will feel they're working very hard. They've made all these improvements. They've brought this legislation in, this money there. I got 82 million from there. I did all this. And so it's always a weird disconnect between the minister's sense that they're doing all this stuff and the public sense that everything's on a general downwards way.

Well, we shall see. Anyway, thanks for that. Thank you. Bye-bye.