We're probably at one of those big historical turning points. I remember I look back to you know 1923 24 after the first world war the country was very unsettled and all kind of issues arising from the war and the liberal party just disappeared more or less in the space of a couple of elections. as it had been the you know dominant party for a century and they just went um they come back in as part of the lib dems but actually the party died really and was replaced by the Labour party and I think we're maybe at that kind of turning point again I think it's very plausible to imagine that reform are one of the two parties that will emerge from all this I I would like to think the lip dems of the other other but yeah I I take the basic point that I think we're we're in a state of potential upheaval We've really enjoyed being involved in non-league football and I I don't know.
I find myself watching the Premier League. Yeah. Well, I occasionally get to the Emirates. Okay. I've got a friend who the season ticket who gets me in from town to town. But most of my recent football, I was the MP for Twickenham for 20 years. I used to go around and watch uh Hampton and Richmond Rangers.
It was a I think they were sixth tier now. Fifth tier, I think. No, they are they seven to six. They went from seven to six. We played them preseason. Ah, we did. And we we won.
Not at Hampton. Yes. The one where Michelle Michelle, you lost me. gone get 250. I mean, not great, but but yeah, good community side. I We get about 400 now. We've We've had the team for 3 years. We get about 400 now. But it's um cuz we were we were driving the other day and Connor Connor said to me, he said, "Crect me if I'm wrong here, Connor. said, "Um, isn't football weird that you just go along for this couple of hours and and you focus you focus so intently on this team winning?" And we started talking about what does it actually mean to win a football match? Yeah. Does it actually mean anything afterwards?
Well, it's it's two hours, but it's a day, isn't it? You're working up. You go to the pub before with your mates. You
have a postmortem afterwards. It's um then you watch stuff on the telly. I mean, it is a way of life if you take it
seriously. I think it's escape as well. Yeah, I think it's possibly an escape that people need right now.
Yes. Yeah. Well, it's great to meet you, Vince. Um, I was really excited about this interview. Uh,
I was explaining to Connor, you're a politician a bit from my younger years. Um, but we had Anne Whitikham in here recently. She said something very interesting. She said the trajectory she thinks of this country is that uh in the not too distant future the two main political parties will be reform and the lib dems and that uh she thinks there's essentially an existential crisis for both labor and conservatives.
Yeah. Uh how do you feel about Well, I think there's an element of tr I I think she's right to say that we're probably at one of those big historical turning points. I remember I look back to you know 1923 24 after the first world war the country was very unsettled and all kind of issues arising from the war and the liberal party just disappeared more or less in the space of a couple of elections it had been the
you know dominant party for a century and they just went um they come back in
as part of the lib dems but actually the party died really and was replaced by the Labour party and I think we're maybe at that kind of turning point Dane, I think it's very plausible to imagine that reform are one of the two parties that will emerge from all this. I I would like to think the lip dems are the other other, but um but yeah, I I take
Why the Public Feel Lost
the basic point that I think we're we're in a state of potential upheaval. And why do you think that is? What do you think you What are your observations of what's happening right now? Well, I think I think a mixture of things. I mean, it's very easy. Um, and I'm now a retired politician. I can say things more freely than I did when I was speaking to a party message. But I I think we've been hit by a whole series of big shocks and I think underestimated actually how serious they were. I mean, the first was the financial crisis which actually knocked the stuffing out of the country. 2008.
Yeah. uh and it meant that the five years I was in the cabinet, we were
having to do very very painful things uh to try and get the country's finances
sorted and people didn't like it. Right. You were just beginning to recover from that that you had Brexit which was a big
shock. I mean I you know given my politics it it's it was a bad shock but you know people have a different view on
that that but it was certainly a big shock. Um and it meant that the country was completely preoccupied for 5 years
with an issue that didn't really help us in terms of the country getting back on its feet. Then we had the pandemic and
then after that the the Ukraine war the impact on oil prices. So we've been it's
like you know somebody in middle age late middle age hit by a succession of heart attacks right I think that's
basically what's happened and so the sort of country is sort of weary
um disillusioned doesn't quite know where to go and doesn't have any real sense of direction.
Do do you feel like the public have a right to be upset at the establishment? Um well I think in a democracy you you know the public is always right by definition. Um but I think I think it's it's it's not just um political failures. There have been um but as I of the the shocks I mentioned three of them weren't really driven by the political class. I mean they were you know beyond the control of governments. I think where the politicians have failed and failed very badly is overpromising. Um I mean it's part of my party's sad history that you know we made this ridiculous promise on university fees and you know I was the minister who had to put an end to it because it just wasn't deliverable and and you then you know massive loss of trust problem which kept going for several years. Brexit was sold on a false pro p prospectus. People I think now angry about that. Um we had very worthy efforts I think to protect the public from the worst of co um and you know basically paying people not to work and of course that piles up debt and that debt's got now be paid for and service but it wasn't explained at the time. So people have been promised stuff you know the the the tries with 100,000 net immigration. I mean these we've had a succession of elections where people the you know the winning parties gone in with wild promises that they couldn't
possibly deliver and so at the end of it people are pretty sickened by the whole thing and one of the big difficulties
with this government is not that they've made enormous mistakes I think they have
but they they went in this election um knowing perfectly well I think that the
public finances were in a very bad way because essentially we'd been financing
the COVID and and and the rest of it. Um but they made this ridiculous promise
that they were never going to raise taxes on income tax, value added tax and so on which which they were going to
have to do. So they cornered themselves by making a a promise that couldn't be
delivered. So to get back to your basic question, if if the politicians have failed, it's by making promises that
they can't deliver. And I think that you can't criticize the public, but the public have believed them and perhaps
shouldn't have. I mean, you've been involved in politics for a long time. Has the character and
makeup of the type of people that we have as politicians changed a lot. Um, it's changed somewhat. um first
women when I first went into parliament there were quite a small number of women
and they were considered characters you know like Margaret Thatcher they were
strong and and very distinctive or they emphasized femininity but it there
were very few women now it's it hasn't quite got up to 50/50 but it's much more balanced um there were hardly any
representatives of ethnic minorities black or Asian now it's common place. We've had a Asian prime minister, black
leader of the opposition. This is no. So, this is fundamentally different. And in professionally,
I think what has happened, you've got more and more professional politicians who've been to university, done a few
years working as a researcher to an MP or or in a trade union or some charity
or lobby group, and then they get a seat in parliament, and then after a few years, they expect to be in the in the
cabinet. Um there aren't many people who have been out there working for a few
decades whether in a factory or a coal mine or in the professions. It it it hasn't happened. I mean I got into
parliament age 54. I mean I was regarded as an old man by the time I' I'd
actually started my political career. Um and so in that sense there's been
there's been quite a big change. What what were you doing up until then? Well I did lots of stuff. And I
I'm really asking what's the experience that you cuz you you're saying uh we have politicians. I worked and traveled in different parts
of the world, Africa, Latin America, India. I got a you know flavor of what
the world was like. I worked in government. I worked in the uh end one
of these think tanks. I worked for the last seven years, five, seven years before I got into parliament with Shell
the international company and went around the world um doing scenario
planning, giving economic advice. Uh so you know I had I had a good sense of
what was happening in the big wild world and in the private sector as well as the
public sector and yeah and I I knew a fair amount about certain things and my the
challenge for me actually going to pol was was getting embedded in my local community because I was one of these
dreadful globalists as they're called and I was having to learn how to be a grassroots guy. Um that was the hard bit
for me. I I guess what I was getting at is what is it about your time in
business that shaped you politically that we possibly missed by people being career politicians? What is it what
happened for you personally? Well, I I think actually certainly the
company I work for was present exceptional. Shell is one of these multinational companies that's been around forever. um but highly professional um you know the sense that you're in a competitive world um and that actually it may seem strange but actually working in the private sector I was having to think long term
the whole time you know we make a big decision on you know investing in a big oil field it's got implications 20 years ahead whereas politics is it's about tomorrow. 24-hour news cycles very very difficult to get people to think about the future and how you shape it. And that's probably points to the issue
that you identified whereby uh politicians aren't maybe giving us the truth because they're thinking about the next election and the next cycle and what is it we have to do to get power.
Yes. Um I think that's exactly right. I I'm not sure I want to frame it as a a
kind of an attack on politicians because you know in in in democracy that is the
nature of the beast and a reality of life and the reality of life I mean I've I've just come from quite a lot visit China where I was doing a few talks in universities and so on in China and you know they've got they've got a highly competent autocracy where things work and you have brilliant infrastructure But would I really want to live there? No.
I think in all our sort of messiness and uh short- termism, I obviously I'd much
prefer to live here. The humble bee, a keystone species
crucial to the survival of Earth's inhabitants. Here's how things would look if bees
vanished. And here's how they'd look if humans vanished.
But imagine if instead we became a keystone species by doing things the
right way, by taking responsibility for our actions and becoming the solution.
Iron Mines, the world's most responsible currency the right way.
because the future depends on it.
So when you look at what's happening in the country right now because for me I mean I'm 46 Vince uh this feels the most
fractured that I've known. Now perhaps in the early 80s it was and I was too young to reced the early 80s. Yeah.
Yeah. And I was probably too young to recognize it cuz I I remember the tail end of Margaret Thatcher. I remember him
as a prime minister and I remember early uh John Major, but the first real prime
minister that I remember and caring about politics was Tony Blair and the country felt alive at the time. I didn't
vote for him, but it did feel alive at the time. Uh I've my son's uh 21 and and
I mean he should answer for himself but it does feel like we're very fractured at the moment. And how I mean Kong, how
do things feel for you? I mean, so
last election would have been the first election I could have actually voted in and I had no
intention to whatsoever just because of the mess and complete
I guess feels like a bit of a circus going on at the minute and I actually
don't think anyone deserves my vote and right now I continue to feel that way.
It doesn't really feel like anyone's got. But beyond that, when you talk, you know, when you talk about how life feels
for you, there's not much future right now. That's that's how he feels. This is the conversation we have most days.
Any of my mates, I would suggest like you are best off not in this country. If
if you want some sort of future. Yeah. But no, I'm not criticizing you,
but I just wonder if you your expectations are too high. I don't think so. if you looked at the
parties not in terms of giving you a future uh or a great vision but you know
we've got problems who can deal with this a bit better than somebody else in a more practical way.
Should that help? Yes, maybe. I I think it's just the general feeling of the country. It's
like I and I don't really think anyone's bold enough to do what actually needs to
be done. Yeah, but that's the problem because I hear this all the time. you know, we've
got to be bold, we've got to be decisive, we need vision. But then you actually say, well, what is it you want?
Then people are saying exactly opposite things. And there isn't a clear obvious way of
changing things fundamentally for the better. I mean, there's a basic problem at the moment that the British economy
isn't growing, right? So government tax revenue isn't coming in, so there isn't
more to spend. So if you spend more on something, you've got to take it from somewhere else. sort of a zero sum country and the
only way you change that fundamentally is by making the economy grow a bit
bigger. But being realistic, we were growing at about 2 12% until the
financial crisis to 2 and 12% and we're now about 1%. Right? So
changing gear isn't going to make an enormous difference. It makes some difference. We're not we're never going
to be growing like China or Korea or or India even. I mean it just we're no longer a developing economy. We can no
longer have those kind of dramatic shifts of gear which make a difference
in emerging economies. We're in a mature um you know developed you might say
relatively declining country and it's not necessarily an awful thing. Uh and there's a sort of basic choice. Do we
become more like Denmark or Finland and have a bit more tax in order to have
good public services or on the other hand do we want to be more like I don't know the US which is more freewheeling
uh less tax um you know that's the kind of choice
you have to make but when people say there is a way forward and I know what
it is they don't because people are pulling in these two opposite directions It's kind of what we said this morning,
isn't it? That it's the the the battle line appears to be uh
one side uh wants more government, one side wants less government. The battle line at the moment. Yeah. But we're fighting over tiny
little bits of territory, right? I mean, there's all this halibaloo last year about the winter fuel allowed, right?
Just as an example, there's not very much money in terms of the bigger thing. It was obviously needed reforming
because there's no way people like me should be getting it. Uh so the only practical question was
whether you abolish it alto together which is sort of what they did or whether you tax it. It's a sort of
technical some civil service type argument but it became a kind of massive storm about you know good and bad
government. I I couldn't get my head around why people were getting so worked up about it. Is it is it because perhaps
there is an anger and a disappointment, but people don't know where to direct it? Yes.
They don't understand the basics of what they're frustrated about. Yes. I think you're you're hitting on a
deep theme here and I don't think either of us can quite express it uh with with
deep understanding. And you know that there are people who are you know jumping very effectively onto that
bandwagon of discontent. You know Nigel Faraja I've known for 30 odd years very
skillful articulate politician is is is currently um reaping the benefits of it.
But somebody else may come along and do the same. This new guy from the Greens or you know my party leader yes that
Palansky I think his name is. Um, no, there is, as you say, a kind of
simmering unhappiness, discontent, lack of direction, but there isn't any obvious
solution. Is that is that a is that a lack of leadership then? We we're lacking a a
uniting force within the country. Yes, I there is in one sense and it it goes back to the answer I gave earlier. My idea of leadership um in the last election would be if um party leader X came out and said, "Look, we have a whole lot of really difficult problems. We've inherited all this government debt because of the financial crisis, COVID, whatever. It it's it's difficult. Uh I can't promise you anything. Uh except Churchill's blood, sweat, and tears. It's going to be hard. We're going to have to make some difficult choices. We will do our best.
But nobody said that bit of honesty. What was needed, what is needed is
somebody to be just basically honest about the limited range of things that can be accomplished without kind of rapid economic growth rather than pointing at a specific group. Yeah. Well, part without pointing at particular group or for that matter pointing at with particular parties. I mean, I I mean, I'm not a Tory. I mean,
I've been fighting the Tories all my life, but I I thought the the whole idea that the last Conservative government was was just utter complete rubbish, right? The economy was absolute mess because of what they did was was nonsense. I mean, they didn't create COVID and they didn't create the Ukraine war and they spent
pots of money trying to protect people's income while it was happening. And that
piled up a big debt problem which is what we're now struggling with. So there was a black hole, an enormous black hole. It wasn't entirely because of bad political leadership. And similarly, you know, people are um I mean Rachel Reeves I think is perfectly smart woman intelligent woman made a few mistakes but somehow or other this woman is ruining the country. It just makes complete nonsense to me this sort of excessive reaction against uh people who in many ways whether they're tour labor were doing their best. Yeah. I'm not so sure on Rachel Reeves
um in that uh she's made some I think she's made some mistakes that she was
warned that about the kind of what would happen if she raised the taxes and I and I know people whose businesses have
failed during this period. It's not entirely on her. As you said, this is this comes downstream from uh a tough
economic situation that they inherited. If anything, one of the things I think about with the Labor Party, I think
they've come to into power at the wrong time for the kind of policies they want. That's fair. Yeah,
we we kind of need the But I think what you're hinting at is that the employment levy, the employers
nicks, was a bad decision. Yes. It's affected employers and it's affecting employment. And I agree with
you and it goes back I think to the point I made earlier that they went into the election with this ridiculous
promise that um we're not going to increase the basic taxes. So if you if
you've landed yourself with an obligation that you can't increase the taxes which make up 80% of government
revenue, you're then forced to do all kind of other things which is one of the few things they hadn't promised was the
employer's neck. So they did that regardless of the the economic fallout. So yeah, it was a bad decision, but it
because of something that had happened beforehand. I mean I I mean the the
point I keep making and it's it's not a popular message even in the my own party that if you want to make Britain more
like Denmark which I guess is what if you're a center-left politician you want to do basically
um value added tax is 25% income tax is substantially higher
and they pay it u because they're confident that the end of it this money is going to be used to provide decent
education health social care and other things. So there's this kind of social contract. Whereas in this country, what
we seem to be saying is that we want European levels of services, but we want
American levels of tax. And you know, 2 plus 2 doesn't equal five. They don't work together. Yeah. And I I
wonder if culturally because I've spent I mean, you probably have as well. I've spent a bit of time in Scandinavia. Culturally, I think it feels a bit
different. I don't think culturally we're set up in that way. Well, I was it
I spent part of the summer in Scotland. I felt there much that we were part of
really part the political culture was much more Scandinavian. Interesting. In in what way? How did you
Well, it's that the idea that people actually value, it sounds a pompous
phrase, but the public realm, right? They want decent services and they're willing to pay for them.
and more of a sense of big community. Yeah. So, so if if you when you're
diagnosing what's happening in the country now and you consider uh your
position obviously previous leader of the Lib Dems and where it's now an opportunity for the Lib Dems, how how do
you think they um capitalize on that? Well, at the last election, um
Ed Davyy, I think, you know, was very skillful. Um didn't try to overstate, didn't try to,
um make grandiose promises, just concentrated on a couple of niche issues. Well, care isn't niche, but it's
it's not top level. um water pollution and then used all
kind of quite clever gimmicks to highlight it. So he got attention. Um
people were many kind of what you might call one nation tries, liberal tries
were looking for an alternative to the Conservative Party and we we offered it and almost all of our seats that we won
were in relatively prosperous parts of the country. um and with a combination of labor
tactical voters who wanted the conservatives out and disillusioned tries who thought that the Lib Dems were
not too far from their basic philosophy of life and the fact that we'd been in
the coalition we'd worked with the tries for 5 years actually I thought quite productively in the national interest
probably bought us goodwill with that group of voters so we've got to a
certain point we've now got um as many MPs as our share of the national vote
would justify only about 11 12% at the time. 72 MPs is it's 72.
Yeah. Yeah. Um and the question is where you go next
and you know there is a couple of options really which is one you know steady as you go. We we we become a
party that increasingly represents the what you could broadly call the sensible
center and brings in a lot of people who would normally regarded as center right
type people. um uh middle of the road tries um as well as the people who
currently vote for us, liberal-minded people. Uh the other alternatives is that which is sort of what happened um
in the mid uh naughties before the coalition era is is going for the big
cities uh competing with reform, Jeremy Corbyn, the Greens in that kind of turf.
Uh and I would very strongly advise against that because I think it would make us completely incoherent
um there's too much competition there anyway. Yeah. Um and I so I think where we are at the
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It's interesting how many options there are now for voters because tradition like when I were when I was a kid I
first was voting it was a choice of conservatives or labor predominantly and then uh for some of my friends who were
disillusioned with the both those parties they would vote Lib Dems it was the kind of like you say the sensible middle road option and then there was a
[Music] that's
a little alarm um Uh and then there were were a handful of people who would vote for the Greens. But now there's
Conservatives, there's reform, there is Labor, there is going to be Jeremy Corbyn's party, your party, uh Lib Dems,
Greens have grown a lot. There's there's a lot of options now. There's a lot of options for voters. Do
you think that's a reflection of some of the disillusionment this kind of
shift? Well, clearly there is disillusionment with both the tries because of their period in government
and with the Labour party now. Um, and it is resulting in fragmentation. And
the problem I think we have as a country is that the political the voting system
doesn't reflect that reality. it it it it it assumes that there is a a
two-party system maybe with a smaller party to provide an option in certain
circumstances. Um so the the system doesn't fit the public mood and I I
think that's why um we may I think after the next election
probably not before it there will be irresistible pressure to change the way that the voting system operates. You can
imagine a situation in which um Nigel Farage's reform party get I don't know
22 23% of the public vote and get no seats in parliament or they could get 30 and get all of
them. You know it it's it's a crazy voting system that doesn't reflect
people's choices. Um, so if if you're really going to make the public angry is
that the recipes keep the current voting system because it doesn't it it ensures
that parliament doesn't represent the country. So, we're going to have to change it. Well, you believe in proportional
representation. Well, yes. I mean, I there there are perfectly good models of
of how this can work. Um during the Blair period, he asked uh Roy Jenkins to
set up a commission to look at the different options and came up with a uh a version that was very like the
Scottish parliamentary election or the German system or slightly different um
where where you have plenty of space uh within the system to have four or five
different options. And the the consequence of that then is that to form
governments you will have to get parties working together in coalition. That's not totally straightforward as I know
because I was part of one. Uh but but it it probably is a better way of reflecting
uh a public that is more fragmented uh where people are wanting a wide variety of choice.
Yeah. I guess the argument uh against it is that uh a government with a majority
can uh can get more done if it's easier to get things done whereas with a coalition there's probably more
tradeoffs is whether is it better to have tradeoffs. Well, I don't I just simply don't think
that's true. I mean I don't know your views about the coalition years. Um but
well let me hear yours first and I'll tell you mine. All all the many of the people I talked to whether it's on the
doorstep or civil servants so on who are part of government thought of it that it was probably one of the best governments
of modern time. Not that they like what we did which is a different question but in terms of actually functioning
making decisions and following through and delivering them. We were very good at that. And there were a lot of
arguments internally of course and some of them spilled out into the public and I was one of the worst offenders in
letting my disagreements spill out into the public. But I I said to my team, I
mean I had in my department I think seven or eight ministers of whom there were two Lib Dems and the others are
tried. said, "Look, we may fundamentally disagree about a whole lot of things, but we leave the weapons at the door and
when you're under office, we we you know, we have to work together and make sure we deliver things that we've
undertaken to do." And as a result, we got a hell of a lot done. Whereas what's happening now and is there's a lot of
posturing and people making promises and it's just not happening. M
so my only experience of coalition government and the one I was in so I I
can't generalize but certainly the one I was in was actually I thought a very good advertisement for that approach to
politics. So I don't I don't remember too much about it but I do I do remember at the time thinking what a great opportunity
for the Lib Dems to be in government. Um, and I felt sorry for the party
because of the compromise that had to be made on free university places. I know a
lot of voters felt like that was a betrayal. Um, well, you can blame me for that if you
like. Well, I was the I was in the last year that got free university. Um, the final year that got it. Um, but
I know that a lot of voters felt that that was a betrayal and
I w it felt like at the time whilst it was good for the Lib Dems to be in parliament, it felt it felt like you
took a little bit of damage from that period of enormous damage. I mean, we we almost it was almost fatal. Um but on
the university thing I mean I you know had sleepless nights about this at the time and ever after um because I had to
make the big decisions or was mainly responsible as the secretary of state. But the fact is we made a stupid
promise. Yeah. Which couldn't be delivered. Um should never have made the promise. But having
made a promise that couldn't be delivered once in government, we had to do the right thing. And we did do the
right thing. It it was very unpopular at the time, though I think actually no longer. Um, and it saved the university
sector from bankruptcy basically, which is where they were drifting. Make sure
universities had plenty of money. There was no austerity in the university sector. the big expansion of numbers,
quality, rest of it. Britain has world-class universities still at least
because of the decisions that were made then. Uh and the students, you know, because they tend to have relatively
high IQ quickly susted on that we weren't actually charging them fees. We
were introducing a kind of income tax on graduates, which because they have to
pay when they leave university, not to go. Um, so it so in general it was good.
It was terrible politics for the Lib Dems is for exactly the reason you suggested, but it was good policy. It
was the right thing to do. And I I guess um I guess this that's
what makes the job so difficult then is that you you're having to weigh up what you
know is good policy versus what the public wants. Exactly. Uh h how how difficult is that
as a because we don't I as a voter might have my personal opinions and what I
think politicians should do and have my criticisms but I've not walked in those shoes. How hard is it?
Well, it is very hard. Um I mean it, you know, my own experience
bears that out. I mean I I got into government. I had to make a lot of compromises. I was actually much less
happy than Nick Cle and other people in the party going into power with the tourists. But actually that's what the
numbers dictated. So I I had to swallow my objections and go along with it. Um,
and we had 5 years of what I thought good but very difficult government. And
at the end of it, I was punished by losing my seat in parliament, which was, you know, as as any MP will tell you, is
very painful and humiliating and all the rest of it. But I uh rather than go off
and tour the world or go to the House of Lords or something like that, I I
thought I wanted to win it back again, which I did. and uh with a big majority
and two years later thanks to Theresa May calling an election when she didn't need to. Um and then within a few weeks
I'd become the party leader and I was able to um
eventually leave of my own choice. Right. So yeah, politics can be very painful and
you do get punished if you become seriously unpopular. Can it be enjoyable?
Um well not enjoyable in the sense of funny haha you know it's um I think you
get deep satisfaction when you do something good and you get something right
um and I think you know there are lots of things I started when I was in government which are still there and are
doing good doing good work um and you can also I think do good with
individuals I mean some of the satisfaction that I now from having been an MP for 20 years is I walk down to I
still live in Twickenham and I walk down to the town center and people come up to me in the street and say we came to you
15 years ago with our problem of homelessness or whatever it happened to be and you helped us and we're now on
our feet and you know I don't know what you did or didn't do but it worked. Um, thank you. And you know, that is a
really really heartwarming uh feeling and probably the the best
satisfaction you can get out of being a politician. Would you do you recommend it as a
Yes. Um, I do recommend it with with a tongue and cheek because I I have written a book I've written since I left
parliament which is called How to be a politician. Um, and my opening lines is a a a
conversation with a teenage uh school school kid who says I want to
be a politician to which my answer is really. Uh, and then I I knocked down all I
explained how difficult it is and how you can be despised by everybody and you know you finish up being humiliated and
thrown out on the streets. But at the end of it on balance when you take all
everything into account. This is a something you can do where you can genuinely make a difference and you can
improve people's lives and make decisions that do actually change
change things fundamentally. So does that does that mean you have to come in with the right intentions like
should you come in with a sense of duty rather than a sense of Yes. I think it has to be an element. I mean no none of us are you know Mahatma
Gandhi right I mean when we all have ambitions we all like to be comfortably
off and and so on. So you you motives are never totally pure but I think you
do have to have a sense somewhere of public I would say public service rather
than duty. The the feeling you you're not just doing this as a way of you know advancing your career or making money. I
mean there there are better ways of making money than going to parliament after all. Yeah. I I I I
look at the pressure especially now that politicians are under the extreme pressure the the social media side of
things, the media side of things. It feels like a very very hard job to do
because whatever decision you make whilst you you may believe in it, you still may
upset a lot of people. And I think I mean we've seen some of the pressure
politicians have put under. It seems I I think in a way you you tell you can
get the metal of political figures by what they how they react when they
finally go. I mean one person who was roundly attacked when he was prime
minister and you know it's my job to attack him was Gordon Brown. But since he left
um he's he's done good stuff. I mean he he does a lot of very important work in
development also as a sort of thought leader in um constitutional matters and
I contrast that with Tony Blair who when he left parliament left politics he
wanted to cash in on it right Cameron did the same. Yeah. Um, Theresa May was looked down
on. You know, everybody made fun of Theresa May very unfairly, I thought. But, you know, she was somebody who had
a real sense of duty and misbehaved with impeccable dignity since she left. Um, I think the
worst unfortunately was one of your recent interviewees, Less Trust, who
you know, like everybody made made mistakes or occasionally may have done something right, but it feels she has to
go around the world telling everybody that she she was right and everybody else was wrong. I mean, that's that's
not a way to deal with politics when you leave it.
So, we had we had Liz here yesterday and uh
I I I feel a little bit sorry for Liz in that she she got the top job, but she
didn't have it for long and came under intense pressure and scrutiny, but since then there has been uh some admissions
that the cause of the market, you know, to change it was out of her control and
that the Bank of England uh was working against her And so I I can understand
somebody who wants to defend their position when they feel maybe they were right and things were conspiring against
them. Do you I don't buy that for a moment. You don't? Absolutely not. No. I I think you know she she had some good qualities. I
mean I I I don't know her well. Um but she was in the cabinet when I was there. She had some good qualities as a person
and some talents, right? But when you've
had such a calamitous end, the thing to do is to step back a little
and reflect and be self-aware and acknowledge that you may have made
mistakes here. You may have done something right. that her instincts have been to spend the last 3 years rushing
around the world telling everybody that she was right and the markets and the Bank of England were wrong and that it
was all a vast conspiracy and I mean that people are just laughing at her and it's it's it's that is why it's sad and
I think I also feel rather sorry for her. She's done herself down by by blaming everybody else. I mean the
simple truth of the matter is that she's in exact she was in exactly the same position as Gordon Brown was in in 20089
uh as we were in the coalition government as Sunnak was but Jeremy Hunt
we all had this problem that you you're heavily dependent on the advice of
officials um and your contacts in the markets about what people will what what
what our lenders are willing to put up with, you know, the the so-called um
kindness of strangers problem. Um Britain is heavily dependent on external capital in that way and you have to
listen to advice. I mean that's it's just basic common sense and the and the
fra we could in the coalition government have made ourselves very popular by just
not doing all that difficult stuff around cutting public spending. But we
we we realized you just had to do it and get through the pain and then get to a position where you could be more
constructive and do positive things. But she just wasn't willing to do that. She just assumed against advice, good
advice, that all you need to do is to cut taxes and the economy will suddenly
start growing. I mean, that was just nobody believed that. And I I just don't
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But but there have been people there's been plenty of voices recently coming out in defense of her. There are people
saying that actually Liz I she did rightly identify the problems in the economy. And I think both the FT and the
new statesman this week have both come out. They kind of backhand apologies but said uh I think the FT said she would be
right to be angry at what happened with the uh LDIS that the Bank of England were essentially working against her.
And I understand you don't think it's a conspiracy but if we do look I mean our 30-year guilts are now higher than when
they spiked under her. But she did. I I believe she identified a problem.
And I I I'm not sure if she's trying to prove she was right or she's trying to say the problem still exists. We need to
deal with this. Yes. Well, you'll hear the same arguments for people on the far left.
Yeah. Who say that all this stuff about balancing budgets and fiscal discipline,
it's all crap. you know, it's all capitalists and bureaucrats working together and frustrating socialism and
it's all a vast conspiracy and in a strange way, you know, you have people
on the right and people on the left saying the same thing that you can ignore advice and that they're all
working against you and it's I forgotten Michael Gove had a phrase for it about the blob, wasn't it?
The blob. I think Liv uses the blob as well. Yeah. No, I mean Whenever a minister
blames civil servants, I'm afraid I always take the view that that that's a
problem with the minister. I worked with civil servants for 5 years. You get good people, bad people
in any walk of life, but actually uh the collective
um spirit of those people is actually working in a wider national interest. Uh
I I just do not um buy the idea that they're and the people in the treasury in
particular, you know, very bright. I mean they probably are in some way. I thought
people would give up to the financial crisis. spotted more clearly that Britain was
coming and they depend on the bank took.
So you know they they do have their biases and they make mistakes but I
think in general people in the back of England
economic advisers the service good people intelligent people where should
we start from that premise it's interesting because again this feels like another political divide
because people I speak to on the more conservative side thinks the civil service is too big and as a a as a
collective kind of left-leaning attitude and then people I speak to more from the left think the civil service is very
good and sometimes is a bit too conservative. The people on the left I talk to always complain that they're they're they're
rightwing. That's so they're so funny that everyone sees them differently. Yeah.
So do you you don't believe there's any reforms need for the civil services? That's not you should always be reforming and
trying to improve professional standards and but it's not where the problems align. No, I don't think so. No, absolutely
not. So, Vince, how do you be a politician? Sorry. How do you be a politician then?
How do you politician? Well, what I described in my book, the various
steps that you have to get through. Um, and the somewhat um you might think
rather banal conclusion is that probably the most important factor is luck.
uh uh because the the first stage is the one that is rarely discussed in the
media which is actually getting adopted by your party for a winnable seat.
Okay. Um there is one journalist I think Michael Crick who you may have come
across who runs a website describing who is being adopted where
and in what circumstances. But that is obviously the that's the crucial step. You can spend half of your
life going around the country standing in seats where you've no hope of winning and where you never win. The people who
are far far clever than me um I've met on the ladder, you know, climbing up the
first stage and they they they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. And I mean I was in the wrong place at the
wrong time uh over a period of 30 years and eventually
partly because I'm quite resilient and I kept going and I had a lovely wife who kept supporting me I was still there
after 30 years standing right so I I did eventually get in but a lot of that's
the crucial stage in politics which is actually getting the backing of your party to stand in a seat that that you
can win and so little of that is actually discussed in the public.
Ian Dun covers it in his book. He talks about this process. Um
so and I assume that means that you have because the parties will be putting
people in seats they can't win. So they can't if you're put in a seat you can't win. They don't really think you're a particularly strong.
Yes. It's not most of these things. Well, certainly I can speak from Lib Dem experience, but these things are not
centrally driven mostly in some cases. Yeah, the Labour party has a habit of
telling somebody in red car or Rotherham, you know, you've got to take X. But in my party, you never get away
with that. Um it's sort of the local people are very um the local party in
every village, you know, has a very strong view about who they want their candidates to be and they're often a
strong preference for somebody local with local roots who's been in local government.
Yeah. Because we see that say with Nigel Farage who took Clton in a seat that he had a good chance of winning, but
there's often complaints he's not there enough. He doesn't really understand the local issues. Whereas our local MP is
you see Muhammad who is a local person. He's known he's known well. We also have Richard Fuller. I think he's North Beds.
Again, he's local and locally known. Um I'm I'm quite interested in local
politics. I I I actually think we focus a little too much on central governor
and not not enough I don't think we have enough local autonomy. I don't know if you Well, I strongly agree with you agree. I
strongly Yeah. I mean that there are many there are many things that could be improved in the UK and I
think one of the most important is the lack of meaningful decentralization in England. Scotland
was different but um over the generations
um more and more power has been sucked out of local government by right and
leftwing governments. I mean I don't I don't think it's a party issue. Uh, and as a result, local counselors, um,
well, I use the word infantilized, they they they've been left in a position where they're not allowed to do
anything without government approval and are heavily monitored and overseen. So,
local government has had the guts torn out of it. I mean, I started my political life um, as a counselor in
Glasgow in my 20ies. Um and you know there are a lot of bad things. I mean
inevitably um there was a kind of Tamonn Hall culture. There was quite a bit of
corruption. You know real corruption. Um you know there was it was a labor
machine. Um there was a strong belief that all you had to do was knock down
slums and build multi-story blocks. It wasn't a terribly sensitive approach to
housing. So the mistakes made but um but on balance they you know they knew their
city and they and and actually Glasgow emerged from its um
the depths of depression which probably the poorest city in Britain at that time
um and is now in many ways um quite a vibrant place and partly because of the
the drive from the bottom from good local people not not from people sitting in Edinburgh and London. Uh so I if the
one big thing I would do if I was called back into government and put in charge
is very improbable um would would be to uh massively decentralize local
government given the much more freedom to tax and spend and to borrow because
that's what real devolution means. Okay. So so in some ways similarish to
the US model. Well, the US has um yeah,
the US is more decentralized. Bizarrely, um the country that is very good at
decentralization is China. I've just come from China and I'm obviously surprised to hear you say
that. Yeah. Well, everybody's surprised when I say that. And of course, the Communist Party runs the country and the the man
at the top is immensely powerful. Um and the you know the party has a strong grip
on the politics of China but economic decisionmaking is highly decentralized
you know local mayors local counties they you know they're constantly innovating experimenting that's partly
why China's done so well economically um and that they have this saying that you
know the the emperor lies over the hill and far away and you know people But
once you get away from the big political decisions, there's an an enormous amount of uh active um local locally driven
economic policy which is one of their great strengths and one of Britain's weaknesses.
Well, I was looking at the Swiss model. Um yes. Well, that is another very good model.
Yeah. I so I noticed with their model with my research and I'll probably have the numbers wrong but something like 40%
of their uh taxation and distribution is local. Yeah. Whereas I think it's only something like
4% in the UK. 96 the UK is the most centralized European country apart from
I think Malta. A small island. Yeah that's right. And um even France,
you know, which we've traditionally thought of as Napoleonic and and so on, has quite a lot of decentralized
economic decision making. Denmark, yes, even a small country like Denmark has
quite a lot of decentralization. Um Germany is probably a very good
example. Would those kind of reforms to give more power locally, would they be tough to make?
Well, it's difficult to make politically because of course it means you're cutting off your your party activists.
Um, you know, you're letting them off the leash and governments are very reluctant
to let go once they've got a hold on power. Um, and it even I think Scotland's an
interesting case where Scotland is only a partial success story. Yeah, there is more powerful Scottish government and so
there is a strong element of decentralization but Scottish local government has been stripped of many of
its powers um and key decisions about universities,
colleges, even the police, you know, are made by the in Edinburgh by the the
chief minister or what whatever they call them. M um so it it's a complex
story but but I think the general mantra I would have is when in doubt
decentralize. Yeah, I like that idea. My friend Belari um he talks about in the US there being
two votes. He talks about you have the ballot vote but you have the vote with your feet and if you don't like the
local laws or the taxation of the state you're in, you can move and that creates a competition between states.
which is something we don't really have here. Yeah. And I think it's healthy, fundamentally healthy. Um and that's one
of the good things about the United States. I mean, Trump is destroying a lot of that now. You know, the idea that
you can just override um some city government and send in the National
Guard because you don't like what they're doing is completely destroying that that American tradition. But the
the genuine American tradition of, you know, allowing states to go their own
way and compete on tax or whatever it is they want is a is a good one. You're not a fan of Trump.
Definitely not. No, I think he's he's doing terrible damage. I mean, it's not just
um you know, relations with the UK. I mean, I can argue about that. But the fact that he's he's destroying the brand
of Western democracy and also in the long run and this goes back to my visit
to China that we now have two superpowers in competition.
Chinese are brilliant at pouring money into science, technology, innovation.
And Trump is destroying his own country's capacity, slashing their
defense budget, overriding scientists and so on. This is a terrible signal to the world actually.
But he's at the same time he's very popular in America at the moment. How do you how do you square that?
Well, I don't He has a very strong base. I mean, that is the problem. There's a very strong base. It may be, I don't
know, 30 40% of the public. It's a big base. It's not a majority, but it's a very big base. And he serves them well,
and he delivers on uh what they want. Yeah. Um
just just to finish off because this has been great. It's it's so good to just to listen to somebody with a bit more experience in uh in government. Um
if you were to come back into government and you were to focus on specific reforms looking at the the general state
of the country, what what would you focus on now? Well, you've got to um
I think probably start with the thing which is the source of everybody's frustration with the fact that the
economy isn't growing and that lies behind all the difficulties about
spending decisions and taxation. Government can't do miraculous things
but they can do a few sensible things. And I suppose what I would do was first
of all I would set expectations at realistic level and I wouldn't
overpromise. I would say look I'm here to do the best I can and we may get the results in 5 years or 10 years but
forget the idea that I can deliver miracles tomorrow. I can't. Secondly, I
would put a lot of emphasis on what I did myself in government and this government has started but not really
followed through on it which is the industrial strategy concentrate on you
know fairly you may think the boring issues like training and um you know
research and development and and you know supporting the key industries of the future. There aren't many votes in
it, but actually that's what's very important uh in the long run. So I would want to concentrate on that stuff.
And I would probably um overturn the promises that the Labor
government made about taxation and say, "Look, I I'm here. You've just elected
me as a kind of center-left uh leader. Um you you had other choices. Um, and
that means I want this country to be a little bit more like Scandinavia and a bit less like the United States. And so
I'm going to commit to raising more money through tax A and tax B. And we're
going to use it to make sure that you have really and I would concentrate on education rather than health because
that's for young people. Um, but I would make sure that we then have decent
services that are properly and honestly financed so people know that they're
having to pay for it. We're not we're not taxing five people in the Caribbean to believing that you somehow you can
fund British public services like the Corbynites and even Nigel Farage. I mean, you've just got to be honest,
right? We we want decent services. We got to damn well pay for it.
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Just just touching on that education piece, it's interesting you say that um
I think the I think we vastly underfund the education system. Yeah. Um but did you agree with VAT on school
fees? Um no I don't actually. Uh I I thought it was I can understand in sense the
motives right you know it is gling I guess if you're a teacher in a state
school to have some of your more talented pupils just opting out and going private. Um but
actually I think it is a free choice. it is a reasonable choice to make. Uh people are going to choose it anyway. If
even if you abolish private schools, people would pay for their kids to have tuition, piano lessons, dance lessons,
maths, and so on. Uh you're not going to stop it. Um and I'm not even The way I think the Labor
government were dishonest about it is that they were somehow trying to pretend it's going to save money. Well, actually, no, because quite a few of the
less well-off parents, you know, the taxi drivers who saved up to send their kids to some uh competitive private
school in London, they're going to drop out and going back into the state sector and somebody's going to have to pay for
them. So, it's not actually saving money. So, I think both on practical grounds and on principle, I thought the
the tax on private school was a bad idea and opposed it. My party did also
actually to give them credit. Yeah. Um, is there anything you wish I'd asked you about that I haven't?
Well, you didn't ask me what I'm doing now, but that's not interesting. No, no there it is. Let's Let's talk
about what you're doing now. Uh, well, I I basically decided to leave parliament and retire from politics. So,
I I'm probably being a bit of a hypocrite. I shouldn't be here talking to you. I should be getting on with my non-political life. But, I do two things
basically. One is I write. I've written I think four books. The latest one
is about the rise of the new superpowers, China and India and what it means for the world system. Um I've
written about um how to be a politician. I've written about great politicians who
change the economic weather, you know, which include Margaret Thatcher amongst other things, though I didn't personally
agree with her. What's the title of that book? It's called money and power. And so I' been I've been a writer and
I'm attached to various universities, LSC, Cambridge, Nottingham where I
pursue that. And the other half of my life I'm trying to be a businessman and having been secretary of state for
business and lectured business on what they should be doing, I'm now trying to do it. How are you finding that?
Very difficult. Very difficult. Trying to raise money for a startup in Britain
is not easy. And what's the startup? Well, one one company I chair is a
hydrogen infrastructure company. It's a new technology. Obviously, it's a
high-risk area. Um, so I do spend my time going around with a begging bowl
trying to get um funds and rich individuals to invest. So far, we're
surviving. Um and I chair a group of other companies who are introducing
batteries into lorries. Eventually diesel will be phased out and we will need other fuels and that's that's going
reasonably well but slowly. Yeah, it's uh raising money is a very timeconsuming.
Yes, exactly. process. Vince, great to meet you. Um, like I say, you're you're somebody who's
who was a big part of a lot of my, um, earlier years, not too early, but earlier years. And, um, yeah, uh, when I
had the opportunity to meet you and interview, I obviously uh, I couldn't wait. So, thank you so much. And look,
good luck with your business career. And I think Money and Power is going to go straight on my reading list. Is there is there an audio version? I tend to prefer
the audio version. Maybe it was Atlantic Press. Yeah, I'll check it out. Um, but thank you so much and good luck with your business, career. Good. And thank you everyone. See you soon.
