The Rest Is Politics: Leading - 84. Denmark's former PM on the power of centrist politics, fighting misogyny, and joining the Kinnock empire (Helle Thorning-Schmidt)

Episode Date: July 7, 2024

How can we unite the extreme right and extreme left? What impact can small countries have on global politics? How was the former Danish Prime Minister influenced by New Labour? Rory and Alastair are joined by Denmark's former Prime Minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, to discuss all this 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] Podcast Editor: Chris Sawyer 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 restispolics.com. Hello and welcome to the Restis Politics leading with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Alistair Campbell. And we have a former Prime Minister from Denmark. And I've had quite a few friends on this interview slot, as has Rory. but I think this is the first friend I've had with whom I've spent family holidays where we've had to endure these appalling, all never-ending concerts by our children. So, Hela, I will declare right at the start as a close friend.

Yeah, we're friends. Yeah, and she's also well-known in Denmark for obvious reasons, having been a prime minister, but also big part of British politics because she married into the Kinnock clan, married Stephen, an MP, and therefore in-law of Neil and sadly departed, Glenys Kinnock. I think I first met you, Ella, when you were quite a junior sort of aid to the Social Democrats in the European Parliament in Denmark. And then, like within a few years, you were the Prime Minister. I know. First of all, thank you for having me.

Both of you. It's great to be here. We're looking forward to it. No, I think we met each other back in, I want to say, 92, 93, where I came over to have Christmas with the Kinnock. And obviously, you guys were there with the kids. And everyone was so pissed, so you had to pick me up in the airport. Because you were drinking a drop. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

So this is the first time I met you. I didn't know who you were at all. So that was the first Christmas we had together. And I've been looking after you ever since. Yeah, and the other way around as well. But that was quite a journey though It was quite a rapid It was it wasn't it wasn't

I was always interested in Europe My first political election was to be a European Parliamentarian Which I was for five years And then I started getting more and more engaged Into the party's situation Obviously extremely inspired by

New Labour And the journey you guys were on Spoke a lot to you and Philip Gold when we went on our endless holidays. And I remember one day, Philip said to me, why don't you do it? One of our long dinners by the pool where the kids were doing their theatre behind us,

why don't you do it? And that actually put a thought into my head that maybe I could go back and try to change my party so it could become electable again and win elections. And that's why I start thinking maybe I should go back and do it.

Take a big step back for a second. And thank you. We're really great to have you. Give us a sense of what makes Danish politics distinctive. For a British listener or an American listener or a French listener, what's different about Denmark and Danish politics compared to what it might be in Britain, France, or the US? The big difference in a lot of Nordic politics is that we know how to be pragmatic and compromise. And that comes from a lot of different things. first of all, we don't have the first past the post system.

We have proportional representation, which means that just in the Danish parliament, and this is a small country we are talking about, we have now nine parties. When I was prime minister, I had eight parties. No one ever gets a majority. So when I was in government, I had a three-party coalition government, but we didn't even have a majority in that coalition. So every morning you wake up as a prime minister and literally think, how will I get my majority? for this piece of legislation that I have put forward. And that gives a sense that you have to make coalitions, you have to work in coalitions, you have to be pragmatic,

you have to do compromises, you have to work with the outside world. So I think what is so different in Danish politics is that you're not less of a politician, you're not less principled when you do a compromise, when you actually go out of the door saying, we are five parties doing this together, you have to constantly build bridges

and that's what is the big difference and that's what, to be honest, I'm also missing in British politics. Well, let's get back to that. It's a wonderful subject. But just one more thing. I mean, size matters. Denmark, as you say, is a smaller country.

What's the impact of being a politician of a smaller country compared to being a politician, let's say, in France or somewhere? I do think you, I mean, I don't know. I haven't been prime minister or president in France. Wouldn't mind, but haven't. Could be a vacancy. I do think you have a much clearer feeling for what everyone, how everyone thinks about things.

I mean, I come from the suburbs of Copenhagen, but I know the country really, really well. And I always felt that whatever living room I came into in Jotland or wherever in the country, I would always be able to sit down and have a conversation with those people, understand their problems. And you just have a sense of how people live. and that means that it's much easier to build those bridges, have a conversation. One of the things I hope we'll talk about is we were much earlier than anyone else in Denmark to actually find out how do you understand the extreme right, how do you understand the extreme left, and how do you get them into the tent and start working with them?

And that has meant that we have so many coalitions. When I was prime minister, I worked with all the parties, extreme left, extreme right, And that is the big difference that you know how people think about a lot of things and you are able to build those bridges. The TV series Borgon was, I think a lot of our listeners and viewers are geeks of politics and a lot of them will have seen it.

And of course it was about a female prime minister and as you say, lots of it was about the relationships and the coalitions and so forth. Was that helpful to Denmark to have that as a kind of global political hit? It definitely was. And the interesting thing about that series He said it came before I was leader and I helped them a lot with the series and they talked to me a lot.

But it came out before I actually became prime minister. But in a way it helped me because obviously I'm the first female leader of my party. I was the first female prime minister in the country. So it helped people envisage how you could have a female leader because there was a fictional series that showed that. So it was very interesting that the series helped me become prime minister. There's no doubt about it. And then it also gave fame to Denmark. I started giving this series as a box set.

This is an old-fashioned thing. As a box set to different people, I gave it to Shinto Abo, who loved it. I gave it to Sarkozy's wife who loved it as well. So we started using it in a way of promoting Denmark. And I met African leaders. It's very much soft power. I spoke to African leaders who had seen it.

And it was just fun. It was a fun way to start a conversation because everyone asked, are you the Prime Minister in Borgen? Are you Bigita? One of the things I think that's striking about Borgon is that it seems as though

the Danish Prime Minister doesn't have all the kind of pomp and circumstances and grandeur of the kind of Elysee Palace and France or the White House. A lot of it seems to happen kind of around a kitchen table and a kind of suburban house living out a very kind of normal life. Is that true?

It is actually true. I mean, I live the life that was, I mean, I think I'm the prime. Prime Minister, that I earned more shirts than anyone in the world. We stayed in the same house that we always did. We had security, of course, but I lived a very normal life. I mean, you queue up in the supermarket, you do all those things. And in a way, that's also part of what you were asking before, Roy, what is different?

This is a very small place. If you are suddenly seen to have airs or live in a different life than your constituents, you are not a good Prime Minister any longer. And obviously I was very different as a person, as a leader of my party. And that was enough. So I also needed to be very down to earth as a person. And as Danish Prime Minister, you really, really are. You mentioned how you sort of tame, as it were, the hard right and the hard left.

Yeah. I wouldn't use that word, but yes. Okay, to or to involve and to engage, right? Which is possibly a lesson that President Macron right now could be thinking about. And it's also something that might come here. Give us an explanation as to how you did that and how effective you were and what the challenges were. This is a big question because it's also, it's a UK question.

It's a European question. You saw right after the European elections, I know your listeners know what goes on. Right after the European election, President of the Commission, Fundalien, she said, she was like a big sigh of relief. Oh, the centre was held. We are safe now.

And I really felt that was a wrong reaction because it was also a big, sign that the European right is awake, it's growing, and it's getting real influence in many big European countries. And what I rather think we should be doing is to think about what are those people worried about who vote for the far right? They're not all bigots and races. Some of them are normal people that are just worried about some things and we need to understand what they're worried about. And that's what we start. When I came back and became, back and became the leader of my party. I was leader of that party for 10 years. I basically had to

move the party out of its comfort zone in terms of tax, in terms of the economy, in terms, but also in terms of how we spoke about that cultural meeting that I think the left has talked about in rosy terms, which is not always that rosy for people who live in it. I happen to come from the south of Copenhagen, which is the town where we have. We had most immigrants in the 70s. We are like the town in the country that has had a lot of issues around this. So I knew from my own childhood and my own background that there were people that were questioning what's going on here without being racist and bigots. And we have to have a bridge to listen to what people are saying.

And I think that's how you deal with the right wing. And then you also make them responsible. Hopefully that is what Macron is trying to do now in France, make them responsible. for what the general politics in a country and that's also what we did in government. We obviously generally around the world have this very positive view of Denmark with reason and a lot of great things about Denmark

and we would expect you as a former Danish prime minister to be very patriotic and tell us how wonderful it is. However, presumably Denmark also has some structural problems, demographic, economic, welfare financing. So tell us a little bit about the some of the uncomfortable challenges in Denmark, which maybe people don't see who have only a very pure, idealistic vision of Denmark? I think we have exactly the same problems that everyone else has. And that's a demographic that doesn't add up. We have a good economy and have always been very good

at making reforms. Like when I was leader of my party, one of the things we did was to make a big pension reform, which means that the pension age actually goes up every year according to our average life expectancy. So that's how we reform the country. Explain that. It's a number of years below the average life expectancy. We always want people to retire 15 years before the average. So the average life expense is 80, they retire at 65 or something like this.

So it goes up all the time. So that is the system we created. So we're very good at creating. It's super smart. It's one of the best things we did for the Danish economy. But again, you've fallen into the trap of talking about all the wonderful, positive, patriotic things about Denmark. Roy is always being negative about politics.

I love that. I love that because you need to focus in on what are the problems. A big welfare state like we have where you basically tax people, we are the highest, one of the highest taxed countries in the world, always competing with France to be the highest tax country in the world. And if you have that high taxation, you also need to deliver world-class services to the elderly, to children, to

everyone. And of course, that is the big problem, that we have pockets where we're not delivering that world-class service. And that will, as long as we have this high taxation, we will always struggle to actually deliver and we have to have a constant machine to reform and become better, better delivering world-class services. Give us examples of things which the Danish list and listening to would recognize as being examples where people haven't performed in the last five, ten years. I think in our health service, we are struggling. We have areas of our countries where it's difficult to recruit doctors. We have hospitals that are overburdened. We have many issues like that.

We also have elderly people that don't feel they get the care that they need. And disability is also an issue where we keep talking about how will we actually make sure that people with disabilities get fairly treated in the system. So our problems are exactly the same. But I do think we should put that burden on ourselves. When you have that high taxation, you should deliver world-class services and Danes expect world-class treatment when they have cancer, when they have a child with disabilities or mental illness, they expect world-class services. And I think people would agree with me in Denmark that they're not always getting that. So you met Steve, your husband, now a Labour MP in the College of Europe.

And were you aware when you met and fell in love with Steve that you were kind of marrying into this big labour thing called the Kinnock. No, I wasn't. So what was that, what was that like? And also, how did that affect your politics being married into such a political family? Well, it was funny. Stephen I met when we was doing European studies. And we had formed like this political group, which was like a social democratic group in the college.

And that's how we met basically. So we met discussing politics, which was amazing. And we always talked politics. And but it really, for me, it confirmed. where I belonged politically. I came into this huge family, not only the Kinnocks, but you guys as well,

and the whole family of politics. And it was just amazing to be part of a new conversation that I didn't know much about, but I hadn't realized that it was like a political family. And you know what? You just meet a guy.

We were very young, and then you just start understanding what kind of family is this and what kind of weird friends have they got and stuff like that. But what did you learn from, because there's nearly, as leader of a party, trying to change, trying to modernise the Labour Party.

You then later tried to do the same. Interesting, I got into the family in 93 basically, so after the 92 election. So what I had to deal with or had to understand in the beginning was how hard that had been. And I really understood how hard politics can be and how much, how long it takes to get to the other side, which actually helped me later on when I had to stop being prime minister. I also met you, Alistair, and saw the whole journey you had with working with Tony and everything. And how, I mean, how hard it was for you as well. So when I entered politics and stood for leader, there was absolutely nothing.

You knew what was lost. That could surprise me in terms of the hardship and how many sleepless nights you have and how hard it is. So I was never afraid of that because I knew that you could do it. But I also knew that you could find yourself afterwards and have a good family and have, love and fun and all the other things that was part of the Kinnock life. So if I'm right, one of the things you did, similar to New Labor, is to challenge some of the traditional left in the party and move the party more towards the centre. And in fact, one of the things you did was reduce taxes and very certain.

Tell us a bit about what's involved. What did you learn as an example for somebody who's a social democrat but has to challenge the left? Why is it sometimes difficult to fight the left of your own party? What is the way to do it successfully? Did you lose friends along the way? Did people become angry with you? Did they like Tony Blair accuse you of having betrayed them? How did that feel emotionally?

Yeah, that's a very good description of absolutely everything. I knew when I became leader of my party, we had not been in government for 10 years. And for the Social Democratic Party in Denmark, that is a long time. We had gone through a few leaders. and we just hadn't found a message that was appealing to people where people start trusting us again. So my whole job as leader of my party was to make people start trusting us again in our message. And that meant we had to change our stance on tax, the economy and immigration and integration. Those were the big issues.

They were like the top of mind issues for everyone. And if we didn't change our messaging around that, but not only our messaging, also how we felt politically, our thinking around politics, then I knew we could never win. And to clarify, so you were going from high tax to slightly lower tax, from more open borders to slightly more control over immigration. And also being, I always wanted to talk about the issues that come when, I mean, we were a country before the 70s that didn't have any immigration. And then in the 70s, a lot of people came. and of course that causes some problems and things you need to talk about and you need to find a way of talking about those issues

in a polite and good humane way and that's what I wanted to do. When I am in Denmark now, I talk to everyone, I always have. I don't think anyone has ever accused me of being racist but I needed to find a way of talking about real issues that people had and that was part of the journey. And obviously the left were accusing me on moving too far to the right and all those things.

But I felt it was so important that our party was in the middle of politics and that people could understand that that's where we were. And what was the most hurtful and difficult thing about the attacks from the left at the time? What made it difficult to do? Well, the most hurtful things that I ever had attacks on me was, of course, that the biggest obstacle for me, even in a country like Denmark, was to be a woman in this post. So everything else is insignificant compared to all.

the abuse I got from being just a woman and a different kind of person to head up my party and standing up saying, I would like to be Prime Minister here. So there's nothing that compares to that abuse that I got in that space. Was that just old-fashioned misogyny? It was

old-fashioned misogyny and also a time where you could just write everything about, I mean, I was criticized for my bags, my shoes, I was called Gucci Hella, which was a really brilliant way of bringing me down in a way and saying I didn't have the competences. I was all about fashion. It was also about saying that I was

too smart for my own party. So there was so many things, but it was all fascist misogyny in that. And I can't describe it in a way. This is going to be an analogy, which is going to sound completely bizarre to you, and I apologize. But go for it. I do notice a little bit of an echo, which is during the recent election campaign, the attacks on Rishi Sunak were often not really about content. I mean, I remember, for example, in the debate between BBC debate between him and Kiyah Stama, people weren't so much saying that he wasn't debating well or that he didn't have a point. They were more going at him for being privileged, wearing fancy clothes, having been to a private school. In other words, they were sort of attacks on his kind of look and his identity rather than the content.

And I wonder what kind of advice you would have for somebody like Rishi Sunak in politics. Well, it's very hard because it actually is his background. What I always felt was unfair is that I come from a divorce background. We didn't have much money where I grew up. I grew up in a... You didn't have Sky Television. No, not. We didn't even have a car, a washing machine in my household.

So I come from a very not poor background, but just a background where we didn't have a lot of money because my mom was providing for us. So I don't compare to Rishi Shunak, so I don't have a lot of advice from him. But I do think that one of the things that I think people are missing from him is that he understands where people come from

and he understands what poverty is and what it means to be at the end of the month and not have enough money and have to prioritize your food budget, for example. I think that's the issue here. It's not so much his fancy clothes because I do think if he showed that he understood these kind of things, people would feel differently. When you said the worst thing,

I thought you were going to say, the fact that Steve kept, being attacked. Oh, God, yeah. I mean, I remember a period when he was constantly being attacked in the Danish media over this tax situation, and you were getting absolute grief. And it felt to me like the Danes just didn't like you having a non-Danish husband. They didn't.

They didn't understand it. I think it would have been much better if I just had a normal Peter Henrik as my husband, who was a teacher or something. I think that would have been easier. And people were also making these big stories about this. this European couple and even in Denmark to be too European can be a difficult thing. I was just very different. And people saw me as different and I admit I was different.

I didn't grow up in a home where I knew a lot of people from my party. I became member of the party very late. I was very different and that obviously, and of course that was used against me. Okay, Ella, Rory, quick break. 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 Alastair Campbell's tremendous banter. And I'm back to tell you about our new series on The Rest Is 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 disson. 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. 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 the grimest 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. Can we talk a little bit about Britain? Yes, let's talk about Britain. And politics. And what's Denmark's sense of where Britain is right now? And I think on Brexit, I never quite felt that you felt the same sense of visceral loss that I felt when Brexit happened. Me personally, I felt a huge loss.

I remember that day in the European Parliament where the British flag went down. and I was crying. And I know colleagues who were crying because the history of Britain and the UK is very connected to the Danish history, came in at the same time. And when the UK left the European Union, I was devastated by that.

So I felt a big loss. The only good thing that came out of it is basically that the European member states actually, it really diminished the groups in the European member states that wanted to leave the European Union and you could see it clearly in the Danish numbers

Denmark has always been conceived as a skeptical country now we're one of the most EU positive countries I think we're well into the 60s of people who want to have more Europe and really be in the European Union so what it did in Denmark was to basically we looked at ourselves and saying

we're not doing any of that and what's your sense today of what Brexit has done to the European politics, but also what's it done to Britain? I mean, we miss the UK. I mean, I worked very, very closely with British prime ministers. We had a lot of things in common.

I still to this day don't understand why David Cameron didn't try harder to change the European Union before he put things to a referendum. I don't understand how that could happen because there was actually open doors in terms of changing things in the European Union that I think would have gone down really well in the UK. So I will never understand that.

I didn't think he worked hard enough to change the European Union before he put a referendum in this country. But the interesting thing is, in the European Union, when they come together, they stopped talking about the UK. I know.

They have stopped talking about the UK. And we also see it in this election. What we are interested in the European Union is the French election. We're interested in German politics. We're interested in Hong Kong. Hungarian politics and Spanish politics. This is where our interest is now. And it is quite significant how little we are hearing about the British election in the Danish media and

European media right now. So that kind of brings us to what the future is for someone like Britain. What similarities do you see between Britain and Denmark and what differences do you see? Many differences, particularly in the political system. I'm always hoping for Britain. that you find your grandeur again, you find your amazing culture again. I was here at the Olympics, and every time I think about what Britain should be, I think about the Olympics.

It was so much fun. I was here for almost two weeks, walking around, talking to so many people, and there was that proudness of being British that I found so inspiring. This is still a cultural hub, all our music, films, theatre, We love the UK and I want this country, be proud of who you are again and use that soft power in the world.

And I'm hoping that in the future, we will have UK becoming closer to the European Union again. We're working very well together in NATO. We need the UK to push us in terms of Ukraine. So there's so many things the UK can do for us. UK is still a big supporter in terms of giving help to poorer countries. So we have so much in this country that can help the European Union as well. And I'm hoping that we'll get that. I mean, we often, particularly in Scotland, but actually I think the UK,

look very enviously at Denmark and want to be Denmark. But sometimes I have Danish friends who say to me, listen, you need to understand these are very different countries. They're very different sizes. They have very different histories. It's not very appropriate to try to model. some are like Britain on Denmark because these are very different types of places. Can you help, do you agree with that?

And do you think size matters and there's ways in which... Size does matter. And I would never presume that I knew how you run a big country. I know much more about a small, homogenous country where we know all corners of the country. But I do think there is Britain is a great country. I love this country. But there is an old-fashioned vibe where there is a nostalgia, almost like, imperial nostalgia that seems to be very hard to depart from.

This is what I'm all about. This is my conservatism. This is a schick. I don't mind conservatism. I'm a bit conservative myself. So socially. Yeah, I don't mind that you treasure what was there before you and that you think that you're standing on the shoulders of people who were there before you.

But you have to combine that with being modern as well. And I've lived in the UK and there are certain elements. of this country, which is just not very modern. To pay your tax, to go to the doctor, to do, to buy a new house. It's just not a very modern country. And sometimes I feel that the past is holding this great country back. Give us examples on buying a house or a doctor or paying your tax. How does that work in Denmark?

You need a digital system for everything. You need a digital system for everything. So, I mean, if I buy a house in Denmark, it's all digital. It literally takes... And with the doctor? You get an appointment online. Everything is online. I mean, we all have a number.

We have a personal number that we use for everything connected to the state. We have files in our health. So you're not so much complaining about the monarchy. You're complaining about the fact that our bureaucracy is still stuck in the 1970s. I love the monarchy. I don't mind the monarchy at all. We have a monarchy that we like. No, I just, I think this is just small examples.

And I would never criticize a country that I lived in. And I love this country, but I do think the proudness of the history cannot stand in the way of moving into the future. And that's what I feel that is perhaps missing. So how do you think people felt around Europe when Johnson was in charge and constantly doing this world beating? We're the best at this and with the best at that. How did you, half living here, kind of react to that? Well, I think you can say you are world beating. I think that's the term he used all the time.

if you are. I mean, if you are the best in the world, say it and be that. Denmark has just yesterday done an amazing climate deal where we're the first country in the world where we're actually putting a CO2 tax on agriculture. This is actually really leading the world in this space. And if you are, talk about it and be that leader. What I don't think is great is if you say you are a leader and you actually not. If you say you have the best health service in the world, then you actually don't. And if you go on like that, I don't think that it goes down very well. And I think people will see right through that and say, are you actually world beating, as he kept saying? Boris Johnson seems to me to be one example of a general change in politics, which we can see

in many countries. Maybe it's a sort of form of populism. And it's a form of different types of leaders emerging, which I guess, I mean, our instinct probably would be that in the 60s or 70s, people would not choose someone like Boris Johnson to be primacy. They certainly in the States wouldn't consider Donald Trump as a potential president, right? These people seem like buffoons, leader across buffoons, and they make it to the top. So what do you think has been shifting in politics which suddenly creates opportunities and spaces for these kinds of people? Two things. First of all, after the war, Second World War, everyone just wanted to higher living standard.

Everyone just wanted better jobs, better lives for their families. There was something really to fight for in those years, which we got through the 50s and 60s, 70s, everything just got better all the time. Then after that and the time we live in now, people have a serious

lack of trust in absolutely everything. When you measure trust, people don't trust capitalism. They don't trust democracy. They don't trust politicians. They don't trust Journalists, they don't trust anything. And I think that lack of trust has meant that people are now prepared to vote for people who are completely outside the norm of how you are supposed to be in politics.

They don't trust the old-fashioned politicians, so they start looking elsewhere. And there's a direct line between someone like President Trump to Boris Johnson, to other leaders in Europe, where people don't trust traditional politicians anymore, so they look. elsewhere and also they see their problems being different. How much of that is driven by, we should maybe bring you on to some of the things you do now, so you're on the oversight board at Meta. Yes. As Facebook as was. I mean, how much of this do you think is driven by social media? I think we have a strong tendency to blame everything on social media these days.

No, not everything, but I think it has had a pretty bad effect on politics. Yes and no. I think social media like everything else has got very positive sides to it. I'm personally love my Instagram. I love social media. You wouldn't be popular if you didn't have your social media, this podcast. So social media has been so good for a lot of things and particularly giving voice and agency to groups of people around the world who does not have voice and agency. And that is what I'm seeing every day when we're looking into cases. We're always asking how do we get more voice to indigenous people, to people don't have a voice to girls and women in in Iran, stuff like that.

This is very important about social media and we must never forget that. Then there's, it's also giving the opportunity for people to meet and to maybe make worse some of the tendencies we have in our time. That could be racist groups or very right-wing groups that have an opportunity to find each other. But I always think about this when people say social media has meant that we get more racist meeting online.

We had a lot of racist meeting in the Second World War. People were perfectly capable of meeting each other in facets moving across borders. So it's not only social media that makes this possible. So I think we need to be very clear about how we regulate big tech companies. We have to have regulation. We have to have oversight board like what I'm doing for meta. We also have to have people to understand the power that social media can have on them if they don't take charge themselves.

and users also have a personal responsibility here. And one of the things that seems to happen with social media is that it can become a kind of algorithm for polarisation. It sort of rewards people making extreme and provocative comments. And there seems to be a very interesting sense in which politics has gone from the kind of centerground days of Blair and Clinton and to kind of U-shaped with the votes that my elbows aren't my hands. And that's, I think, a very...

is this striking example of the way in which social media may be at fault. And one of the questions, I suppose, we have is, is there something you can do to actually address the algorithms themselves so that you're not rewarding people for making extreme and provocative comments? To be honest, I think it's a bit simplified way of seeing things because you can see whatever you like on social media and you can also ask not to see things on social media. You can go onto your feet. You can say, I don't want to see political things. I don't want to see advertising for this company. I don't want to see these words. There's so much you can do on your own feed.

And I don't think people are pushed. It's like we are talking about people like they don't have a free will. If I want to see something that's happening, which is illegal on social media, if I want to trade things that are illegal, illegal, if I want to gravitate towards the most extreme right on the most extreme left, I will find a way on social media. So it's not like we are just pawns. Let me push back one more time.

Maybe this is unfair because now you work for the Facebook mother company. No, I don't work for the Facebook. I am independent of Meta. I am Matter's watchdog. So I criticize Meta every day of my life. But I do think we have a tendency to just adopt these simplified ways of seeing social media. Let me push back then a little bit. Go on, Roe.

So my sense, for example, I use what used to be Twitter X a lot. And I feel, and I felt as a politician, that in a sense, that platform trained. us, it taught us what was likely to get the most retweets, what was likely to get the most likes. And over time, we began to develop ways of writing sentences, ways of using images in order to get that. And that tended to drive us to more and more provocative in extreme positions. You realize that you didn't get rewarded by saying, or trivia, had a fascinating conversation about the digitization of the Danish Health Service, right, gets two likes. If we say, you know, Donald Trump is a war criminal who should be taken to the international criminal called the Hague, I can guarantee 20,000 likes, right?

Yes. So surely we have to be honest about that. But that has always been the case. That has always been the case in tabloid media, that they would say things in the strongest possible way to get. But it was not an option for me, right? But you can also argue that you have got a voice in to express your opinion and that that is a good thing. I'm not so much worried about your voice, Roy, but I do think that in many countries where they have oppressive regimes, you have an opposition that needs a voice. And those oppressive regimes,

there's nothing they want more to say we shouldn't have social media, we shouldn't have free speech. So I think free speech is an amazing thing and we should always defend it. And then we shouldn't just say that people are so stupid that they can't decide who they want to be following. You know, when President Trump was limited on social media, on Twitter back then was Twitter, and then also on meta platforms, he just did his own social media. So I'm not sure that we can say that it's just social media that has divided us. It's a lot of other things. And it's a simplification of politics and the lack of trust we have in politics. And politicians maybe not living up to the expectations if we just turn to social media and say it is your fault.

And it's not because I say there's no one to blame social media, but we must stop saying it's all social media's fault. We wouldn't have a better world tomorrow if we're just abolish social media. We'd have a more boring world. So as you say, you love your Instagram and you're pretty prolific. But the post for which you're on best owed was a selfie with President Obama and David Cameron at Nelson Mandela's Memorial Service. What was that like? Because that was like, with Michelle looking pretty angry in the background. She wasn't angry.

Well, she looked it. She wasn't. Yeah, you know, but you can't trust pictures like that. No. You should know that. It was an amazing event. It was Mandela's Memorial Service. It was like in a big stadium.

People had like instruments and drums. It was a crazy atmosphere. And you will know this. It was so unusual. There was kind of free seating for Heston States of Government. Just go and sit somewhere. So I went in and there was like two post-its on two seats saying reserved. But then the next one, there wasn't a post-it.

So I just sat there. And these two post-its was actually basically reserved for Michelle and Barack. So they came in a little bit after, after Barack Obama had done his speech. So they came in. Obviously, we had a chat. I had just learned to take a selfie from Johanna, my oldest daughter. So she has just taught me to take a selfie. So I said to Barack, we knew each other.

We were working together. They said, we need to do this. This is like a new thing. We need to take a selfie. Obviously, what happens is that Cameron. photo bombed muscled himself to the photo

so there's this ridiculous photo which I'm the only one who got I got that photo no one else has got that photo and we just had a laugh it was a moment of three people we're the same age

we have nice working relationship just taking a selfie it was the year that self became part of the dictionary and it became the most selfie most famous selfie ever and I went from Johannesburg to Copenhagen and when I landed

I was globally famous. And that was, it was so weird. And since that, and last next time I met Barack Obama, he said, you got me into trouble. But it was, it was a fun moment. But people were very worried about it the day after. What is the, looking back, what is the, along with all the wonderful benefits of politics, what do you see as being the cost of politics? If you were talking to one of your children and they said,

I want to be a politician. And you were being honest with them. What would you warn them about that maybe the public doesn't understand about what's involved? Politics has honestly become a security risk and we have to admit that. And also I have friends who are no longer here

because of who they were and because they were in politics. So you can't say that it's risk-free to go into politics. But I would advise young people to think... Your children? Yeah, I would. Because often I find people

are very happy to advise other people. I would advise my own children to go into politics and your children and everyone's children because it is so rewarding. And you know that, Roy. It is so rewarding to serve your people. I mean, the biggest title and the title I will always be most proud of is to have to being prime minister because I was able to serve the Danish people as prime minister. It's a big honor and you can change things in politics. I still look back at things that I did in the 10 years I was leader of my party. and when I was Prime Minister, when I changed my country for the people that I wanted to serve.

And this is such a great honor. So I would recommend people go into politics, local politics, regional politics, and European politics, which is an amazing thing to do as well. I would always be grateful for the five years I had in European Parliament because I felt I could be part of a change, not maybe a large change, but a small change where you change things for real people. And it's an honour, it's an honour to serve, and you should never forget that. So I would actually recommend going into politics. Very on message for the podcast. Now listen, I, so I've known Steve longer than you have, because I've known since who was a kid. And I've known your two children all their lives because, you know, you got married to Steve and then on they came along.

And you said earlier my daughters, because one of the daughters is now a son, Ilo. Yeah. And the trans debate in this country has, I think, become pretty toxicified. Yeah, it has. I just wonder whether it's the same in Denmark and also how you've handled that. I know that you and Milo go out and talk about it and you're very proud of it. But just talk me through that from whether that's a different debate in Denmark. It is a little bit of a different debate because everything is less polarized and becomes less polarized.

I wrote a book a couple of years ago about leadership and how my journey into leadership and what I've met. as a woman in politics, but I also talked about our kids and Milo's journey, which is a journey from being a girl to being a trans person now with gender fluid, basically. And we started talking about this, and I was surprised of how helpful it felt to a lot of families, because they start writing to us, so great you talk about us, you make it so much easier. And all I wanted was just to normalize how we talk. about this and also say to parents, you don't need to understand everything. You don't need to understand everything that your kids do and it doesn't matter what your kids do. You just need to be there

and support that child who you love. It's the same person. Whatever journey they're on, it's the same person. And it is the same person. And that's the message I want to just to give to, it's a simple message and it's not very hard. And one thing that has saddened me a lot is to see that there's suddenly a fight between feminists. I consider myself a feminist. I've been a feminist since I was 12 years old and the trans community. And I think we should be on the same side. There's so much to argue, there's so much to say about trans community and

feminists being on the same side. And I think if Milo and I can help on that discussion as well, we want to do that. Oh, you're doing that for sure. Why do you think that somebody like J.K. Rowling, for example, is so angry about this issue that she wants to do a whole front page in the Times saying she can't vote for labor. I don't know. And I really like J.K. Rowling. And I've read all her books. I'm very saddened by it. But I also want to try to take the temperature out of this conversation. I actually feel that my role in politics, also Danish politics, is to try to build bridges between generations, between different. points of view not to call other people names. My role is as a mature former politicians is to try to build bridges. And I would love for her to also be part of that building bridges between

people. There are so many people trying to pull us apart, trying to say this is black and white. We can't build that bridge. But I do think, I believe in compromise. I believe in meeting, being pragmatic, all those things. And that's why I don't understand. why we have to have a fight between feminist and trans people. We need to build bridges there as well. I love hearing this. And of course, one of the things I admired a lot about your husband, Stephen, is during the European debate.

He was really trying to find a compromise around Brexit and bringing people together and living out those values as well. I was very proud to work together. By the way, when I said that I didn't feel you felt that sort of visceral sense of loss, because during that debate, I think you think I was going too far. Well, I felt you were going too far. I know you did. And so did.

I think. Yeah. No, I do you want to know? Yeah, I do. I do. I felt it was very difficult to ask for a second referendum

when people had just voted. And I sometimes feel that people who ask for the second referendum created an obstacle to finding the middle ground and the solution. And that bothers me because I think there was a middle ground.

I think Roy was representative of that. So I, yeah, I do think that I understand why you did it, asked for a second referendum, but I also felt I understood why people would be very angry to get a second referendum when they had just voted on something. It's like saying, oh, we didn't like the result of that, so we just do it again. The Danes did it once, didn't they? We changed something. We actually, when we did the Maastricht Treaty, we voted no,

and then we changed certain things. We got four exemptions from the treaty and voted again. So that is exactly what could have happened here. You could have got a different. treaty with voice proposal. What I was saying is that you could have agreed the deal and then had a vote on that because the deal that he ended up doing bore very little relation to the Brexit that was promised. That was my point. So true.

And I mean, you got the worst of all worlds with the Brexit you ended up having. It hasn't solved any problems as far as I can see. People often ask me, is there, are there any good things about Brexit? Honestly, I can't see it. Other, what I'd said before, that in Denmark, we do not want to leave the European Union anymore because we see how that is going. So, no, I always felt there was a missed opportunity to find the middle ground. And again, it's not in the culture to find that middle ground.

And I felt that my husband, Steve and Roy, worked very, very earnestly to find that middle ground there. Finally, you then spent a very interesting period running Save the Children. And I wonder whether you could think a little bit about what the difference is between being a prime minister and being the head of a big international aid agency. and maybe be a little bit frank about the advantages and disadvantages of both. What are the different frustrations in the two roles? I've made such a weird journey because I started in politics. Then I went into the NGO sector as CEO, say the Children International. And now I'm basically in business.

I do the oversight for Meta of themselves. So I'm Mehta's watchdog, but I also work in a number of boards in the US and Denmark and the UK. So I'm in business now. And I think that journey has been very, very interesting, has taught me so much. And one thing I've really learned is that when you are in a business, as I am on various boards, for the first time I'm feeling that the people in the room are on the same team. When you're in politics, you're never on the same team with anyone, not even the people from your own party. Then you go into coalition, definitely not on the same team.

In NGO sector, there's also a lot of different teams. Not a bitching goes on. A lot of different teams, which they should have a discussion. about and then in the sector that I'm in now, when we're in the boardroom, we're all on the same team and that's been an amazing feeling. It's much less stressful as well. So that's my lesson. I love being in Save the Children. I mean, you know that yourself, Roy, it's amazing to work with 25,000 people across the world and more than 100 countries just trying to make life a little bit better for children. This is my passion. I'm passionate about children's rights,

that children have agency, have a voice. That's also why I think we need to respect children's voice in social media and not say they just can't be on social media. Children have a voice as well. So that was amazing to work in that organisation. But I'm also glad that I transitioned out into a business world where I really feel that it's amazing to be on the same team. Now finally, and thanks for being here and thanks for all your time.

I think both Roy and I should say thank you. You should? For lots of things. True. Well, obviously a lot of things, but also it is doubtful whether this podcast would ever have happened had it not been for the fact that the first and only conversation I ever had with Rory Stewart before we started on this venture was in your kitchen. Isn't it amazing? I feel like I was part of creating this beautiful moment and meeting between the two of you. Your house, your party. Yeah, it was a good party. Yeah.

Alistair obviously demanded to hear Abba all the time, which is what he does at a party. but I'm so glad you had a conversation in all that noise and the inferno of that party and started this makes me very proud and I want to say this particularly to Roy I mean Alistie please don't listen you're doing a fine job in this podcast and I listen to it all the time I don't want to say it to Alistair because you know how he gets Roy if he gets too much praise doesn't like it can't live with it doesn't like it no well just we'll just tell us that's one way of putting it Stephen Halley had a party at home.

Steve had worked with Rory in Brussels. No, no, it's more of a French parliament. So Stephen and Rory had worked together in parliament. Rory, I think, was the only Tory who was there. And we had a chatting. It was during the Brexit debate. Yeah, it was big. We had a sort of.

You were the minister then. Disagreable disagreeable. But I thought, or at least he's got something about him. And so then when we did have the idea of doing the podcast and my social media followers, thank you social media as well, started, and I said if I did a podcast with the Tory, who should it be? And loads of them said, Roy. And I met him and I knew him. That's amazing. Roy was the obvious choice, but I do think what you're showing in this podcast

is that it is actually possible to build those bridges, have that conversation, disagree and invite people in who disagree with you. And I really like that. And that's what I want more of, that we disagree in an agreeable way and that we talk to each other and try to build those bridges. experiences that you, the world could become so much nicer if you try to build those bridges. Well, on those bridge building note, thank you for being here. Thank you for having. Tack, Tach, Tachmower. Tachmower, the only Danish I know.

Thank you for me. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Thank you. Oh, Royce, that was what we call a whirlwind breath of fresh air through the studio, I thought. Well, I think she's great. I mean, obviously, she appeals to me in every way. I love this stuff about compromise.

I love the fact she agrees with me and disagrees with. you on the referendum. But I also thought she's a reminder of the importance of optimism and cheerfulness in life. I mean, not just in politics. I mean, I don't think she's bluffing. I think she genuinely tends to look on the bright side and tend to think that everything's great. No, she's one of my favorite people. And, you know, the holidays that I talked about, including when she was like under a lot of pressure, as sometimes was I, but she's always got that sort of smiling disposition. And the pressure was horrible, wasn't it? Because if I remember correctly, there was this accusation that Stephen Kinnock was really resident in Denmark and should

have been paying Danish taxes and wasn't. And then she's becoming prime minister. and we can see what that's like in a British context, right? Your Prime Minister and your husband's cheating on the tax affairs and you've got kind of non-dom husband, which is basically what they were saying. No, I got very involved in that because they wanted a bit of help in terms of managing, dealing with the media and so forth. But it was horrible and it was really big. I mean, the Danish media can be probably not as tough as ours in some ways,

but really quite brutal. So, yeah, she had a lot of pressure. And that's the first time I've heard of say in those terms that the word, part of the job was just that straightforward, old-fashioned misogyny. Yeah, being a woman, yeah. Yeah. And I think female politicians,

actually almost everybody, we've interviewed us at that, haven't we? I mean, it's a very, very common theme that probably the strongest, most striking thing is how badly you're treated as a woman in politics. But the, and my God, she was on message from my book message, wasn't she?

Young people got to get it. Because Julia Gillard in the book says exactly the same as she said, even though she had the misogyny, she would still say to young people, do it. Get into it. What did you notice watching her about what the difference was between being British prime minister and a Danish prime minister when you were observing the difference between Tony Blair, who was a very close friend, her, who was a very close friend? What did you sense was the difference? I think it was probably the question of scale. So she said rightly that she had protection and so forth, but it was quite small. It was a couple of coppers and a sort of bulletproof car.

I think it was also the fact that maybe when you travel internationally, there are certain countries where the head of government who is traveling is just universally noticed. America, China. So at the moment, I guess, you know, if Macron was traveling around the place, you just notice that that's going on with some of the smaller countries less so. But I think the other thing that was really interesting about Heller's career, there was a period when she was seriously in contention for the top European job. To be commissioned press for it. I think Angela Merkel at the point was quite keen.

I can't remember where that one ended. So she was seen, you know, Bill and my friend Eddie Rama, tiny country at the moment, but actually when he walks in the room, the other leaders kind of, you know, oh, here's Eddie. And they had a bit of that. And the Greek Prime Minister who we just interviewed. Yeah, absolutely. He was the one who probably would have got von der Leyen's job

if she had been knocked off of Per. She'd be knocked off her first. Yeah. I wonder also, I'd like to maybe get us sometime over a drink and try to really get into this question about the difference between being the chief executive, safe children, huge international NGO, being on the board of META, one of the largest companies in the world and being Prime Minister of Denmark. And of course, being hella, because she's got a very positive view. She basically says they're all great. They're all fantastic. They're all fantastic. They're a great time. I loved them all. But I felt going from politics into the NGO world, one difference is that you have more direct control as a chief executive in NGO than you do as a minister. As a minister, there are so many laws, civil servants, processes, parties, which actually often means that you pull a lever and something doesn't happen.

Whereas the CEO, it is more direct. But it's also true that the difference between dealing with other people's countries, so she would. would have been dealing with the Democratic Republic, Congo or Yemen or South Sudan. I mean, horrors and tragedies in other people's countries emotionally feels very different to navigating a small change in tax in Denmark. I don't know how she felt about that. Be interesting to know more. Yeah.

But also, I think the other thing is, you know, she's young enough, she'll definitely do something else big in her life. I'm pretty sure about that. And I love the way she talked about Milo and the trans issue. I thought that was really a question to it. That was so good, wasn't it? Yeah. So good. And I'd be interested.

I mean, obviously, we have a lot of feminist listeners who feel that we're not addressing it. I'd be interested to see how they respond to it because I thought what was lovely is her saying, listen, I don't want to stir this up. You know, I've got a lot of respect for both sides. This is my child. This is what I think about it. I've got admiration JK Rodding. And honestly, I'm not in the business of dividing. And nothing as well.

I think a lot of parents were really home to me when you said, you don't have to know everything that goes on in your children's lives. You don't have to know everything about them. You have to understand them and love them and be there for. Almost you don't have to understand them, so you have to love them. Yeah, exactly. And I think that's so important because we're so into the idea of knowledge. We're so into the idea that you can know someone else. And I suspect the greatest truth in the world is giving up on that

and accepting that people are quite alien and uncertain. You're not in control, but you can love them nonetheless. Is that replaced the earlier great truth that if you lose something, it's probably where you last thought you had it. Actually, I have another truth that I want to share with you, and this is very important, and I want you, I mean, if you outlive me to pass this on future generations, never ever eat pistachio ice cream.

It's completely revolting. I don't agree with that at all. I really don't agree with that. It's such an important piece of wisdom that I want to share with it. But it's also wrong. Tramééééééééééééééééééééééé. You're not going to do better than that. Thank you.

Thank you.