YouSaid · the spoken record

Alex Chalk

lines on the record: 69
first: 2024-06-23
most recent: 2024-06-23
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I think all I can sensibly say is everyone has a right to a defence. I've defended, I've prosecuted more than I defended, but everyone has a right to defend, and that's really important. I'm more interested in records actually in office. And that's what I will always focus on. So, I mean, I think he has done some things which are wrong, right? So we've got foreign national offenders and he wanted to stop the plane of foreign national offenders taking off. So for my part, that is what I will always focus on.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Something quite special in our democracy. And I think this event today is just a small part of it, that freedom of speech, and it's been a real pleasure to be able to join you.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, it's interesting to use the word reveal. I'm not the person, the first person to use this expression, but someone else did, and I picked it up. But politics reveals there's something about the intense pressure of it that it shines this remorseless spotlight on your weaknesses as well as your strengths. And so you find out a huge amount about yourself. You find out what your breaking point is. You find out how you have to balance these competing issues. You know you want to get in my hospital, I wanted to get some more scanners in my hospital. I knew the following day I was going to have to meet the health secretary. I also knew there was a vote that night on something I didn't particularly agree with. So where does my loyalty lie? So it's this constant challenge of what is the ethical and the right thing to do and how do you balance these competing considerations. And I found that immensely difficult. But I hope if in many years from now, Rory, that I come to be looking back, I still do think having traveled around the world, that for all the failings, all the shortcomings,”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that Rishi had a very difficult inheritance. And I think it's fair to say that he has had to try to deliver in a short period of time. He's had to restore, I think, a lot of trust. I think there's no doubt that the immediate economic context was difficult. And I think it would have been astonishing to have had a complete turnaround. And I genuinely think he's done a good job and he's done the best he could in a very difficult circumstance. And I just say this, I sit around the cabinet table with him, and sometimes I'm there one-on-one if we're doing something to do with prisons or whatever. And I have never seen anybody who understands the detail more than he does and who cares more and who tries harder to get to the right result. And to err is human, I'm sure he won't have got everything right and there things that should have been done differently or not at all. But his heart is in the right place. He's got the brain the size of a planet. And that really resonates for me.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“981 was 980 more than it needed to be, Anasta. But what I wanted to say is this my constituent are some of the smartest people anywhere in the country and they will work it out for themselves. Lots of ex-GCHQs, some very, very smart people there. And they won't be told. It's not like, oh, well, the pulses say chalk's going to lose. They'll work it out for themselves.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Obviously, the underdog, and I'm definitely the underdog in Cheltenham, but all I would say is in Cheltenham, I've been the underdog. I'm probably the answer to a pub quiz question. Paddy Powell happened on Toulouse. There are other betting agencies available. In 2015, 2017, 2019.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So my feeling is, and I speak through the prism of my own electoral fight in Cheltenham, that my job as somebody who loves democracy and you love democracy, whether you win or whether you lose, right? You've got to really, is you have to set out to the people what your record is, and I've got a record in Cheltenham of Saving the AE and all those things which I won't bore you with now, and then say what I want to do if I'm re-elected, and then you entrust the people with the decision. And I think it's perfectly reasonable in the national debate to say, look, this is where we want to go.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On message, but I do believe this we have genuinely in my department about how we want to ensure that we stay on increasing the number of women who can get justice for allegations of rape. We're prosecuting more people for rape than in 2010. We can have more independent sexual violence advisors. We can ensure, for example, that more serious offending is caught, for example. We outlawed upskirting, non-fatal strangulation. We are the party that brought in coercive and controlling behavior as a specific offence. There's a lot that we're doing, a lot we want to do, but we do have to stay the course.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Some of the spending commitments that have been made. So I know that apparently the 28 billion is not happening, but I think they still want to spend between four and five billion. So there are big spending commitments. And I think people are rightly and reasonably concerned about that. But you make a point. This nation has had two sucker punches in the form of the pandemic, which had this sort of scarring effect, there's no doubt about it, and also the war in Ukraine, which had this impact on national income. Now, we are healing. So you talk about the situation in the courts. It is difficult. There is real strain, but I think we can heal our way through the system. And I think it's also the case if you look at, you talked about waiting lists. In fact, I think they've been going down for several months on the bounce. I look at Cheltenham in my patch. We've got a brand new hospital with 17.2 million pounds. We're doing an additional 3,000 appointments every year. So the system is slowly healing. And it's about whether we can stay the course. Now, I know you'll say I'm absolutely...”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, I think they'd be quite careful in the wording that they've used. No taxes on working people, but you're sitting there going, hang on a second. Well, what about corporation tax? What about capital gains tax? What about inheritance tax? What about council tax? So I think there are a whole load of things that there will be people worrying, pension allowances and so on, worrying that they'll be going after that. So I think that is a genuine and legitimate concern. Plus, of course, some of the...”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, so look, we're running 80 million is another maximum sitting days, which you know what that means. So we need to have more practitioners as well. But also what we're doing is for those people who are awaiting trial, we've rolled out a thousand independent sexual violence advisors and independent domestic violence advisors so that they can support those individuals through the court process. So there is plenty more to do I accept”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So there are a number of issues. And first, the condition of the courts was what is, is too poor. And that's why one of the first things I did when I came into government, I said to the Prime Minister, we must have, please, can you reopen the spending review, which as you know, Alice, well, you both know it's incredibly difficult thing to do to get additional 80-odd million pounds to go into the court estate. And he did that for me. And it's making a huge difference. And that's really important. We need more practitioners. That's the other practitioners.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, no, hang on, we'll come back to that. So that's the second. But on the issue of funding, we've injected 141 million pounds into legal aid. Also, when I came in strictly into the department in 2020, I wanted to roll out something called ELSA, early legal support and advice. I gave it a snappy name so people would remember it. But the idea of trying to promote access to justice, because that's how you ensure that the laws that are set out in Parliament don't become a dead letter, because people can actually enforce them. So critically important. So we are actually now housing legal aid. We've expanded that. We've also expanded family legal aid because ultimately too many people going into court as litigants in person, that clogs the system up, creates delays. So we have looked to expand that.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, he said in Brighton. He said we're going to derail the gravy trainer. And you know what? And you know, I got named and shamed because I'd earned a certain amount within a certain month. So they would name and shame lawyers. It was awful. It was a really hostile. And Charlie Faulkner, to his great credit, wrote an article in the Times saying that we were wrong to vilify legal aid barristers. And generally, these guys do exceptionally important.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I sometimes say that I'm a legal aid lawyer on a career break. I care passionately about legal aid, and you will never hear stuff that I had to hear, by the way, when I was a practitioner going off down to Snaresbrook Crown Court for a mention at £46.50 plus VAT, which is literally what you were paying, where we were getting maligned by people I won't name unless you push me in government at the time say, oh, well, these are fat cat lawyers, snouts in the tropics. It was complete rubbish. Do you want me to Well, look, he's a perfectly right guy. So Tony Blair was saying that we are going to derail the gravy train of legal aid. That's what he said. He also said.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And the decision was made no, because that would have prioritized prisoner health over public safety. Point number one. But the second issue is should we get rid of jury trials? Because that was seriously being considered. And you might remember they thought about it in Scotland. There was much hue and cry. And Robert Buckland and I said, It means that the cases stack up in the system. And remember, we talked about people awaiting trial in custody. The numbers awaiting trial and custody. Have gone from 9,000 pre-pandemic to 16,000. So you're carrying those additional folk in jail. And so that is a really important aspect of it. So even though you're building a load more prisons, if you make that decision to hold on to your principles, there is a price you pay for that.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, here's a really, really important point to mention. I know everyone is kind of bored of talking about COVID. It's absolutely ages ago, blah, blah, blah. But there are few areas in our system that are more susceptible to that. And I'll just explain why. So people talk about pressure on the prisons, for example. Sometimes people may think, well, what is the reason for the pressure on the prisons? The reason is this. During COVID, we made two fundamental decisions. I remember sitting around the table in the MOJ. One, should we release a whole load of people from custody? Because public health England and Public Health Wales were saying, look, Ministers, you are going to lose thousands and thousands and thousands of people. There is no conditions which are more susceptible to an airborne virus in prison. And so they said you should release 16,000 people. Now, by the way, California, which is a similar sized population to England and Wales, released 11,000. France released 13,000. We released 200. Now, as it turns out, although every death is a tragedy, the numbers that died was fewer than 200. And that's because prison officers did a spectacularly good job at keeping them safe. So first decision was, should we release loads of people?”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, anyway, very, very expensive. And so what I was fascinated is people can be persuaded. And so I thought, so I came in and you tried to make your mark as a minister, and you try and say, listen, this is what I think we need to do. So that was the proposal. And there are a number of things that I want to do when I came in. We needed to improve the fabric of the courts. And Rishi was great. He unlocked some money to put into the courts. And he was fantastic about those things and really impressive and listened to the evidence and so on. So it wasn't so much politics as kind of I think this is a good thing to do.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What was the politics Look, I had as a backbencher. I talked about this, and incidentally you talked about the kind of the trust interregnum. So in the most underreported speech ever. So I'd been a minister, as you indicated, and then I left and so on. And then there was party conference. I thought, here I am. I can say what I think. So I went out and I talked about the precise issue. And I said, follow the evidence. And I was speaking to the Conservative audience. And they came with me. They said, hang on, I completely get the logic of this. It makes sense. Because by the way, you know, the cost of these prison places is like $650 grand for each place to build it and then £47,000 a year to incarcerate someone. So it's a huge.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Contribute to society are dramatic. So, do they send you inside or do they say this crosses the custodial threshold, Mr. Stewart? But we are going to suspend the sentence. So you will still have a custodial sentence against your record. Make no mistake, but you will do this work, this unpaid work to repay your debt to society. You will also, by the way, go on an alcohol rehabilitation course. You will have your freedom restrictor, so you can't go and watch the football on the Saturday. And if you break any cricket, all whatever it is, you can't go to the British Library on a Saturday. And if you breach any one of these conditions, you will hear the clang of the prison gate. Now, I think, by the way, that sounds like could be common sense, but also the evidence shows that the chances of re-offending for a short send is 55% if it's an immediate custodial sentence under 12 months, it's 25% if it's suspended.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Years now, you wouldn't automatically release stuff to 15 years, but you could be if the parl board said that you were safe. I think a lot of people nowadays say, what, 15 years? That's a joke. That's simply not enough. So I think it's perfectly sensible for those most serious offences, they get locked up for longer. But when you're talking about those offences, say for the sake of argument, driving whilst disqualified, right? That carries a custodial sentence. Now, if you, Rory took leave of your senses, maybe work was going badly, relationship breaking down, whatever it was, and you drunk too much and you therefore were disqualified from driving because you've just been a couple of micrograms over the limit, but you're off the road. Get off the, and you're told at court, do not drive that car. But you have a terrible row with someone. You're rock bottom and you drive to go and see your best friend because you just, anyway, you do it. And you get caught. And the magistrates are considering whether to send you inside. Now, if you go inside for a short sentence, that is your life wrecked. Your reputation is gone. Your relationship's gone. You are absolutely at rock bottom. And the chances of you being able to...”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I think, first of all, you have to recognize that Norway and Denmark, there are different cohorts of criminals. So you have to, judges will sentence based upon the people who are coming into their courts. My view has always been we have got to ensure that there are prison places for the most dangerous people. We've got to take the most dangerous people out of society. The question is, should we be locking everyone up we're scared of? Do we want to be locking everyone up we're cross with? And that fundamentally crystallizes the issue. My whole approach to be at this is follow the evidence. Strip the emotion out where you can. So that means I think for those people who commit apporting crimes, think for example the Wayne Cousins case, the poor Sarah Everardo is abducted, appalling things done to her and then killed. Absolutely right. You should get a whole life order, right? So we have legislated so that there are more whole life orders because I think that is consistent with what the British people expect. When I started prosecuting the standard, if you could say that, tariff for a murder was 50%.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Get the pipeline, but that wasn't an unreasonable point. It was less correct is to say, oh, well, there wouldn't be pressures on prison places without that. That's not the case. So those were expected to roll out on 27-28. In fact, the fact we've lost a year doesn't make the blindest bit of difference in terms of the pressure today.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, yes, so that does happen. So sometimes they come to the end of their life. But what we're not in a position to do is to discontinue or to shut down the entire Victorian estate. Some of it's actually still very, very good, but there are other bits that you would want to get rid of. So we've got another prison that's coming on next year, HMP Milsyke. So the point that Labour made, which was a fair one, which was said, hang on, there have been some prisons which have been bunged up in planning. And she's right about that. Shibana was absolutely right about that. And that has been frustrating. But it's also correct to say that of the three which we're going to build, two have now got planning and the third one will get planning fairly shortly. But my solution to that has been we need to get additional money from the Treasury to ensure that we've got a pipeline way in advance so that we're applying for planning permission like years and years in advance as opposed to hoping and expecting as what they call optimism bias that you're actually going to get it. So optimism bias has been detonated in the MOJ because it's simply not that we got rid of that. So my solution has been”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sort of stepping back, looking at this for 10,000 feet. So we brought on quite a lot of prison places since 2010. So the total custodial state is about 88,000 people. That's 4,000 or more than that higher than it was in 2010. And indeed, we are rolling out the biggest prison building program since the Victorian era. So we built HMP5 wells, HMP Phosway, which I say passes my French foreign minister test in the sense you would happily walk around with your counterpart and say, no, voila, look at that. These are really decent, clean, rehabilitative prisons and they're absolutely fantastic.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He doesn't get his X mark. And I should just add incidentally, our custody time limits in England and Wales are lower than they are in France. In France, my goodness, people are detained pre-trial for years sometimes. So actually our six-month CTLs are broadly right. But you've always got to be conscious that these people are in the custody of the state. And that, of course, weighs heavily on me. As I know it did on you.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Prison because I wanted to see what was going on. And so, fundamentally, there were things which I found troubling, and I challenge anyone who is basically a compassionate human being not to feel troubled by it. So, you know, when people are remanded in custody, awaiting trial, they of course are innocent until they're proven guilty. I remember seeing some guy in a prison and he'd been in there for eight months because CTL's custody time limits had been extended by two months. And the regime during that time is he'd spent a lot of each day on lockup. You know, that is something that should trouble anyone.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So you're this guy, obviously this expert in international affairs. And I think you were saying, I don't quite know. And then you took to it. And I don't know whether it's because you read all those books and you recognize that there is this fundamental tension that runs throughout politics, which is the rights of the individual as against the security of the state and how you balance those things comes into the sharpest of focus in the way we handle our detainees. And so, yes, I had spent a lot of time in prisons at HMP Elmley. I spent too many years of my life or hours of my life in HMP Elmley speaking to people, but you're very conscious when you're defending someone, you're sitting there in a dank cell, hang on, the state puts you here. What are the obligations on the state? And I've always been very, very mindful of that. And I remember also you, I think, tried to get them to bang you up in prison. I tried to do the same thing as prisoners minister. They hate it. And in fact, they declined to let me do so. So I did the next best thing, which I spent three days in a gritty London.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I remember very, very clearly when you became prisons minister, I remember going into the library in the House of Commons and you had, you had taken the trouble to go to the librarian and you'd asked for all the great tomes and what the prison reformers had done. And they were stacked on this table this huge pile of books. And I remember being incredibly impressed because what we also had discussed,”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There are approximately 100 million people on the move around the world as we speak. And that figure is likely to go up. Look at the 50 degree heat in the Indian elections. Look at the extraordinary and accelerating pace of climate change. There's got to be a 21st century solution, which is consistent with the rule of law. And that's what we're moving towards.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so I do. I think it is properly arguable that it remains within the four corners of international law. But I accept its novel, I accept it's contentious, but I've looked very carefully to see whether this can be said to be consistent with the ECHR and our duties that exist under that. Because, you know, lest we forget who was the person who wrote most of it, it was a British, was a Scots lawyer, as you know. And a lot of these values, right to life, sounds a bit like a British value to me, prohibition against torture and human and degrading treatment sounds fairly British. Prohibition against slavery, the right to liberty and security. So all I'm saying is that it can be done within the four corners of international. And the final thing I wanted to say is, look,”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, no, but we have to take this in stages. So the whole point about this policy is that people like me, having thought about this extremely carefully, by the way, and dissected every clause of it and say, to what extent is it consistent with the human rights insofar as we're taking disapplying that part?”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Accept his novel, I accept his contentious, and I accept his, you know, it is difficult, but I also strongly expect that in 10 years from now this will become pretty mainstream. And whether you're looking at France or Austria or Germany, there will be an element of offshoring in the way that they seek to do it.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, no, no, but the point is hugely. We are very tough on that concept. But anyway, that point is we've got the commercial court is fantastic. We've got wonderful judges and so on and so forth. The reason why I say that is because we have done a huge amount in this country to uphold the international rules-based order. Possibly pound for pound we've contributed more than any other nation. And that is an enormous part of our soft power. So international law matters. It's also incredibly important to paraphrase Edmund Burke from the 18th century, a state without the means of some change is also without the means of its conservation. We have to evolve. And I think that's incredibly important. The law should be a living instrument. And so what I've said, and I think not unreasonably, is yes, the framework of international law matters, but we also have to ensure that it remains modern and relevant. And it must be right that sovereign nations can protect their borders consistent with international law. So what we are seeking to do, yes, I...”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, I've always said that I believe in the rule of international law. One of the things that is precious little disgust is which country has the second largest legal sector in the world. It's ours, right? It employs huge numbers of people. There are firms from 40 different nations in London alone. It's a great engine.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's absolutely right. I do think this is one of the more equal societies on the face of the earth, and we should take some quiet pride in that.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I genuinely don't. Well, there are possibly aspects of it, but I say this. I went to And I went to the United States, which, by the way, all sorts of observations I can make about that, which you might want to come on to. But I was sitting there in the British Embassy. And we had the great and the good. We had everyone from Supreme Court justices to the Attorney General. And by the way, the UK has massive convening power. We should never forget that. But I was looking around the room, and it was overwhelmingly white, and it was overwhelmingly male. And I remember thinking, actually, in Britain, of course we have things that we need to improve, but this is by and large a pretty fair-minded country where people principally are interested not where you're from, but where you're going. And I take such pride when I look at the diversity around the cabinet table, which I think is well understood. But by the way, would not be possible in most peer nations. It just simply would not happen. But I think we give ourselves very little credit for that. And I think whilst there are also proper concerns about background,”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And a belief and care in the world around us and playing a part in no man is an island, proper John Dunne mentality. But also there are a lot of people who by modern standards across the educational piece were sorely undiagnosed. People who had neurodiversity issues or people who simply didn't have addictive personalities addressed and so on. Of course it was a privileged background, but it wasn't without complexity for some of the kids who went there.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, I think it takes a lot of people to make a world. That's my line, and I'm going to stick to it. And there is an issue, though. So the small thing I'd say is that, yes, of course, I haven't got a hard luck story, but it's really interesting looking actually at my year group when I was at school. One guy from my house, my boarding house, it's all kind of very rah, rah, get all that, but he fell into drugs and I'll never forget as a barrister going to Blackfriar. I was in Black Friars Crown Court for a trial and I went into the court three and there was my mate from school. He was there and he was gripping the rail at Black Friars Crown Court for some drugs offence and he had mental health problems and gone off the rails and next time I checked in with him he was dead. Another guy also got into drugs. So two of the 12 kids in my year, both of them sadly have now died and both of them drug related. So it's not, of course it provides privilege and of course it instills values and those values are incredibly important and issues of self-discipline.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No So I was unaware of his existence. I mean, it may be that he was aware of mine. You know what it's like at school that you know the guys in the years ahead of you, but not so much”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, no, I definitely watched what's internationals are very important to me, and the big sporting occasions, obviously, I'll dial into the Olympics. But I have to confess at school, I was the academic guy. The guy was working hard.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, yes. I know, no, I love sports, so I play cricket and that kind of stuff, but to no great level. So I was enthusiastic amateur, but I absolutely loved it. And as I said, we were talking just before we came on air and become passionate about Cheltenham Park run and being active and I ride my bike everywhere. Do you watch sports?”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm very impressed. Anyway, so in my back, I was, if I'm being perfectly candid, I was studious, hardworking, academic. I loved poetry, history, all those sorts of things and theater. So I can't pretend that I'm not.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“By the way, I heard a great story about you, Rory, which I'd love to test, but when you came into Parliament, is it true that Norman Shaw, where of course we went in our first year, that you locked yourself out and then you went your key and then you knocked on the neighbouring door and you said, do you mind terribly if I? And then you walk through, climbed out of the window. Of the fifth floor window, and then shimmied onto the next balcony and got your way back in. Is that true?”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, absolutely strictly, I grew up around Cheltenham. So that's where my grandmother was. That's where I grew up. And so when Cheltenham came up in 2013, I thought, this is my home patch. I've got to give it a go.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Get off with this. What I'm trying to explain, so in wartime, the classes disintegrated. And it was this extraordinary melting pot where people came together from all walks of life. But when this grand lady married Ronnie Chalk, the tailor, the family didn't turn up to the wedding because they thought this was such an appalling thing to have happened. So this was a total scandal.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You scratch below the surface, Roar, you never know what you might find. Anyway, but here's the interesting thing. So he married wartime. So he was in the RAF. He married this woman called Elizabeth Torbett. Now, Elizabeth Torbett, whoa, she was grand. So she came from one of these sort of grand families, I think, dimly related or distantly related to the Shrewsbury or something. I'm not sure.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A tailor, yeah. I know people think exactly, but that's why I wanted to just kind of, so he was a tailor, so this is a Posh tail.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Didn't let Nadu Sahara talk Okay, well, listen, I'll try not to be dood very briefly. So, my grandfather was a tailor and he was, he served in the RAF and his wife.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Obviously, he's his own brand. He's the reform party. Let's see what happens. Those aren't my politics. They really aren't my politics. He's making a fair point about immigration, and it would be a great mistake to poo-poo that. But I also think that a kind of overly simplistic approach to how you deal with these things, which is making vague blandishments, but not actually getting into the detail, is a big mistake. The truth is these things are complex and you've got to get into the detail. You've got to consider how do you ensure that people are provided with legal aid? How do you ensure that that sticks in the courts? I'm a lawyer, right? So I often would prosecute people and you have to do really inconvenient things like ensure that the defense are provided with material, which might, if it might reasonably be considered capable of undermining the case for the prosecution, that sounds boring until you get Horizon scandal and suddenly these things don't work. So you have to do the plumbing. You have to do it with care. And that ultimately is what makes it stick.”
2024-06-23 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 81. Alex Chalk, Lord Chancellor: How to fix Britain’s prisons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source