The Rest Is Politics: Leading - Introducing... Legacy

Episode Date: November 15, 2023

Everyone leaves a legacy.  In their new podcast series, produced by Goalhanger & Wondery, Afua Hirsch and Peter Frankopan tell the wild stories of some of the most extraordinary men and women ever to have lived – and ask whether they have the reputation they deserve. Search Legacy now, wherever you get your podcasts, or binge the entire season ad-free on Amazon Music. 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 therestispolitics.com. That's the restispolities.com. So, everyone, it seems, leaves a legacy. Certainly many of the people we interview here on Leading will shake the world, I guess, for many future generations. Very proud of some of the people we've been interviewing recently world these knowledge. So, here's a question. How of the biggest characters in history change? the way we live today. That is the subject of a new podcast called Legacy, which is a partnership

between a goalhanger who make our shows and Wonderry, another leading podcast producer. And it's hosted by broadcaster and journalist Afua Hirsch and my friend, the historian and author, Peter Frankapan. And they'll be examining the legacies for ranger characters, including Mikhail Gorbachev, Cecil Rhodes, Pablo Picasso, and Nina Simone. Their first series is all about Napoleon. And here's a clip from episode one. famous guy, big name, huge in France, all over the world. What do you think when you hear about the name Napoleon? I used to be a lawyer, and when I think of Napoleon, I think of Napoleonic Code.

When countries became independent from Europe, they often adopted the Napoleonic codes. Right, I thought, well, you said you'd be a lawyer, you thought maybe you'd sue him. But it's about the legacy of Napoleon as a lawmaker and administrator. No, bad law, Waterloo. No, for me, he was this slightly vague figure with his arm tucked into his jacket, and weird jokes about his height and the size of various other body parts that I never really understood their origin. Gosh, in the English education system,

well, you have Battle of Hastings and then the Battle of Waterloo. You did it have for months. Well, he's clearly a character that is still very much in our popular culture. And now, Peter, we have a new Ridley Scott movie starring Yerham Phoenix, and it said more books written about him than anyone else. Yeah, I heard 300,000 books more than about Jesus Christ or Mohammed. But look, either he's an enlightened despot or he's a great moderniser, he's a codifier of laws, he's a military hero, he's an enslaver, a lot of baggage.

And maybe you could argue paved the way for all sorts of things that are slightly unexpected that we're going to talk about too. But let's try to figure this out. And for this, we're going to take you back in time to a crucial moment in Napoleon's life. The year is 1815. It's the 7th of March, just after 6 in the morning. We're in the Alps, in the southeast of life. France. In the morning sun, snow-capped peaks loom over a column of men and horses as it moves along a

narrow mountain pass. Hooves and boots stamp a steady rhythm, punctuated with the clatter of kits and arms on carts and backs. Napoleon's collar is turned up against the alpine chill. He breathes in the pine-centred air. There's nowhere he'd rather be. He's with his men. They are marching towards their destiny. They are few in number. Napoleon has commanded. much greater forces, but they are his. He senses a change in pitch in the voices ahead, and the steady stamping of the men's feet slowing, then stopping, as word travels back through the ranks.

Royalists. Some spits the word out with distaste. But there's fear too. Napoleon can always sense it. He breathes out slowly, straightens his back, and pushes through his men to the front of the column. No one says, He can hear a stream, snow-heavy branches creaking, and his own boots crunching on the path.

Otherwise, silence. The Royalist soldiers have formed a defensive position, some kneeling, some standing, their muskets are raised, and they are pointing at him. He thinks he sees some of them smile or snarl. He throws back his head, stretches out his arms and roars, if you want to kill your emperor, here I am. And waits for the shots. So if you want to hear more from Afjua and Peter, search Legacy Now, wherever you get your podcasts, or you can binge entire seasons of legacy at free on Amazon Music.

Hi, it's Dominic here from The Rest is History, and here is that clip that I mentioned earlier. The other thing is something else you get some Grantham, and that's the Methodism. And actually this, to me, I think this is one of the absolute defining things of Thatcherism. It's the tone, the moralistic, evangelical tone. Yeah, and the low church tone. rather than the high church tone. Completely. Margaret, as a girl,

had to say grace before every meal. She had to go to chapel three or four times on Sundays. Her father, as a lay preacher, went on and on and on about hard work, individualism, thrift, clean living, all of this. And this is what I think

makes her politics different. There is a moralism to it, a low church moralism that is totally unlike anything that any other Tory leader says before her. So in 1984, an interview with the Times, I am in politics,

because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end, good will triumph. I mean, Ted Heath could have lived to the age of 10,000, and he would never have said anything like that. It's unthinkable. Also, I mean, what's interesting is that it's giving to the left what the left often give to the right. It's casting the left as evil and the right as virtuous,

and usually it's the other way around. Completely it is. I mean, you see this reflected in her archives, which are online at the Thatcher Foundation website, which is brilliant, by the way, this amazing digital archive. You can see all the notes that she would handwrite for her conference speeches, and they'd be full of all the stuff about, you know, the evils of socialism, good versus evil, what the great religions of the past teach us, what life, you know, life is struggle. Her speechwriters would cut all this. They'd say, God, this is bonkers. But it would find

its way in one way or another. And I think you're absolutely right. She thinks, socialism is not just wrong, she thinks it's morally, it's evil, it's corrupting. And people in 70s Britain, you know, they're used to thinking, socialists are well-meaning and idealistic, maybe they're a bit deluded, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, she doesn't think that. She doesn't think they are well-meaning idealistic. She thinks that they're doing the devil's work. Yeah.

And that's what makes for her admirers, it's so invigorating and for her critics. I mean, if you're on the left, right, and you're used to thinking of yourself as the goodies, to be told, actually, you're not, you're the bad people. It's insulting. And it's why I think one reason why people take it so personally when she sort of wades into battle. If you want to hear more, search for the rest is history wherever you get your podcasts.