Oliver Dowden
The Guardian
What holds, and what fails, under pressure, standards and accountability.
Oliver Dowden is the Culture Secretary who focuses on safeguarding cultural heritage and addressing contemporary challenges in the arts. This interview reveals his commitment to defending national values and his proactive approach to leadership in a turbulent political landscape.
“Many of my Jewish constituents have very grave concerns about the conduct of the current Israeli Government. However, Israel is the Jewish homeland, and I think many of them are concerned about the content of the statement, the highly political tone of the briefing around it and its timing before Israelis themselves can decide in an elect…”
“The problem is that the Argentinians can smell weakness because of our approach to the Iranians’ attacks on two British bases earlier this year.”
“When I was in government we conducted one of the largest exercises, Exercise Mighty Oak, which involved more than 4,000 people testing the effect of a power outage. That exercise demonstrated that it cascaded very rapidly and that it very rapidly affected water supply, transport and other public services.”
“I am afraid we saw exactly that this weekend in the extraordinary scenes at the Pride march, where there was explicit antisemitism and people directly attacking Jews while the police stood back and watched. We have to achieve a cultural change. Does the Minister agree with those objectives?”
Political Thinking with Nick Robinson — The Oliver Dowden One
LISTEN AT THE SOURCE ↗THE RECORD IS CHECKABLE