Now, you could have been in parliament with all these guys. you did run for brent south. east. east! against ken livingstone. you did, of course, have a politicaljob. you worked forjohn major right at the end of his premiership, at the end of the tories time in office. you know, the old joke at the time was a ratjoining a sinking ship. did it feel, as you went into number ten back then that you werejoining a sinking ship? yes, i sort of knew the conservative party was going to lose the 97 general election. i didn t anticipate how big a loss it would be, but i already appreciated it was very unlikely he would win. but it was an opportunity to work for two things. one, a prime minister and somebody, secondly, somebody i profoundly respected. dis people around you, as you entered downing street, did they say, or didn t it need to be said, we re going to lose? i mean, we re clearly going to lose
That s correct. now, your parents were not conservatives. indeed. they, i imagine, would have been quite uncomfortable in conservative company. well, that s interesting. so my parents, my dad liked harold wilson. you know, don t forget, my parents are refugees to this country, both came here in 47. they got married in fifties in 57. so they re refugees to the country. my father was a scientist. he liked the idea of planning and thought that would work for the economy because after all, that s what he was a systems engineer and it worked for him. but actually they always had a thing that held them back from the left, which was that my grandfather had been in the gulag, my father had been exported to soviet collective farm. so they thought that socialism was a really bad idea and they were very concerned about people on the left who were against.who might sort of favour that system.
When you say borisjohnson, as it were, made it up as he went along and remembered something from the past, is that how you think he can explain to himself if he believes it, that he didn t lie to the house of commons? i m not sure. you know, i m not.i don t have a medical qualification, so i don t know what the reasons. . . he ll tell himself. but i do think that he is.that not preparing properly for these occasions was crucial. he basically didn t mind what he said, therefore didn t prepare for it properly. and you are under a lot of pressure, so you will say the things that are convenient. and did he not care, as you wrote at one stage, because his whole career was based on it not mattering, that he didn t care what he said? yes. look, his experience was it didn t matter. so when you asked me earlier about my concern about modern politics, one aspect of it is an increased understanding of what people do and don t follow. and it s been one of the things that i have understood myself so much better than i did
And in all the times i ever, one of the ways i ve kind of dealt with the issue of, you know, commenting on issues, and i m also providing advice to people, is i always try and say the same thing. it s simpler, and i try to tell people and start with your real argument. think what you actually think. think what you think is right. if an argument has convinced you, it might convince other people, and use that. now, one of the jobs you ve done for all these leaders is write speeches, but you ve also helped them prepare for prime minister s questions, whether as leader of the opposition or as prime minister, what s the key to it? well, you know, actually, my first point that i made to them all is if an argument has persuaded you, it might stand a chance of persuading other people. so if you have come to a particular view and you re being asked a question by the leader of the opposition, and obviously i worked for william hague when he was leader of the opposition, so i did it the other way as well. the best first answer is the thing that persuaded you to take that position.
So when will these storms start forming? well, from late morning onwards into the afternoon, i think the risk of thunder increases across england and wales in particular. a big range in the rainfall forecast. locally, 30mm of rain in an hour is possible later in the afternoon, perhaps even 80mm in a few hours from central southern england through central england, all the way to the north. but i think the really widespread heavy showers will start to form later in the afternoon and into the evening hours. and it does look as though it s these more eastern and northern areas that are at risk from these big downpours, gusty winds, hail and, of course, flash flooding, the met office warns. on monday early, we could see still some stormy weather across parts of eastern scotland. but then again, that weather front moves northwards quickly and then, behind it, it s a case of sunny spells and just a scattering of showers. and again, 1 2 thunderstorms as well. so if you miss the storms on sunday, you might actually catch one