I’ve become a fan of Amol Rajan’s interviews on his YouTube channel “I’m Amol Rajan”. Recently he interviewed Kemi Badenoch and before that John Major. His first question to Sir John Major was why he agreed to the interview when he rarely did so. The answer was that most TV interviews are short form and inevitably lead to sound bites rather than considered debate. In contrast, Rajan offers a one hour, thoughtful examination of past, present and future.
I like Rajan’s style. He doesn’t indulge in hectoring; his approach is genuinely to allow his interviewees the opportunity to inform the audience and he doesn’t treat them as adversaries. That isn’t to say he ducks difficult questions, just that he doesn’t treat such questions as attempts to trip them up. After Baadenoch dissed her old school as displaying "the soft bigotry of low expectations", he quoted the school principal as denying this; Badenoch responded with, "I don't know who that person is." Although she comes across as thoughtful and likeable much of the time, this dismissal came across as patronising. Her self-description as "culturally Christian" feels shallow.
He gives the feeling of actually liking his victims and relished spending an hour with them. His response to Badenoch's saying she snitched on a fellow 15 year old pupil at school for cheating (he got expelled) was "No wonder you were so unpopular, you sound really annoying", the kind of thing you'd say to a good friend, knowing they won't take offence. Does she do herself any favours in this interview? Not really; she's more like a think tank researcher than a politician. There was not much on policy, because she is still in the learning/thinking stage: "You can give easy answers if you haven't thought it all through. I do the thinking and what people are going to get with new leadership under me is thoughtful Conservatism, not knee-jerk analysis.” So more Keith Joseph than Margaret Thatcher, Anthony Giddens than Tony Blair, Steve Hilton than David Cameron, and who ever heard of them? If Kemi Badenoch is not careful, her innate caution will be swamped by her party's desire for - above all else - winning elections. And there is indeed a sense of vulnerability: "I'm somebody who people have always tried to write off, and I have always succeeded and I believe I can do that with the Conservative party".
John Major, in contrast, has no pressure on him; he's been there, done it, he is free to speak to truth. He comes over as despairing about modern British politics; about Brexit in particular of course but the standard of public discourse and of political debate too. He dismisses a question about Boris Johnson and "partygate" as completely unworthy of his attention. On the Conservative government's Rwanda policy: “I thought it was un-Conservative, un-British, if one dare say in a secular society, un-Christian, and unconscionable and I thought that this is really not the way to treat people. We used to transport people, nearly three hundred years ago, from our country. Felons, who at least have had a trial … I don’t think transportation — for that is what it is — is a policy suitable for the 21st century.” Brexit was “the most divisive thing in our party in my lifetime...Britain has become “weaker, poorer,” isolated from European alliances and diminished on the world stage."
Rajan finishes his interviews with some quickfire questions:
What time do you wake up in the morning? KB: 5.45 (weirdly precise) JM: Around 5.30–6.00am
What time do you go to bed? KB: midnight JM: Usually around 10.30–11.00pm
Greatest achievement in politics (so far)? KB: "getting the postmasters' convictions overturned" JM: “I think the peace in Northern Ireland is the thing I would most like to be remembered for … though it was not mine alone, it was the work of many hands.”
How would you like to be remembered? JM: fondly
What would you still like to achieve? JM: "I think I’d like to live long enough to see my country at ease with itself"
What's your guilty pleasure? KB: taking my shoes off. JM: lemon drop martinis (to Amol Rajan's confession that he doesn't know what that is, JM: “Then your life needs to be enhanced”)
What makes a good leader? KB: "Honesty, grit, determination, conviction" JM: “You need to carry people with you — the country, your colleagues, sometimes even your opponents. If you can’t, you don’t really have leadership, you just have noise.”
Making a comparison between the Conservative party's (and the country's) past leader and the new, as yet unproven, manifestation, might be unfair. Kemi Badenoch is at the beginning of her journey and I'm sure the ever-courteous Sir John Major might have some helpful advice on how best to succeed in her goals; does she yet have the experience and wisdom to seek it out?
I look forward to more of these ever-courteous encounters.
