YouSaid · the spoken record

Andrew Adonis

lines on the record: 41
first: 2018-06-08
most recent: 2018-06-08
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

“Going into the house. I don't think it's going to be an election the next year. So the time frame for stopping Brexit is very different from the timeframe of a new House of Commons.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There are all sorts of possibilities. And that's inoculated me into thinking that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. We have two big parties in this country. We have a first past-the-post electoral system. My own view is the only way of bringing about fundamental change is by operating in those parties. And I'm Labour. I have been now for a generation and I'm not moving.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Definitely. I think the issues facing the country and the crisis facing the country is now so big and so urgent that people like me in all conscience can't stand aside.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I do. I think the biggest mistake I've made in my political career was not to seek to enter the House of Commons. And there were very good reasons for it at the time, not least because I didn't think I'd be staying in politics for long. I saw myself as a public service reformer who would move on. I thought a good prospect I'd move back into journalism and I wanted to write books. But now that I've become deeply engaged in it and proved unable to give up because of the big controversial issues, I think it was a pity I didn't go into the House of Commons. And I'm thinking that maybe I should seek to go into the House of Commons in future.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We are a brilliant democracy. We are the best democracy in the world. And the way that Brexit will be defeated is by the operation of our democracy, either by Parliament on mature consideration when it sees the treaty, saying, I'm sorry this doesn't add up, or what I think is more credible because there was a referendum on a menu without prices two years ago, Parliament referring the treaty to the people and there being a referendum on the treaty itself. Now, no one can say that is not democratic. That is the supreme exercise of democracy, and that's how I think Brexit will be stopped.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“At the moment, we're in a tactical battle at the moment. We're in the phony war, if you like. the real showdown comes in the autumn and on that one i'm still confident that ultimately he will vote against the treaty because he can only vote for or against and jeremy particularly with his far left tradition the idea of him voting with the most far right Tory government that we've had in a generation I just don't think is credible.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, Jeremy looks to me to be trying to split the difference, which is what he's done on Brexit all the way through. Now, it's great that he's splitting the difference with me as opposed to splitting the difference with Nigel Farage. So we've got Theresa May doing a Brexit, and he is constantly trying because of his party. And I think also, to be fair, because of his views, to split the difference with the pro-Europeans, not with the anti-Europeans. What he's got to do, though, is ultimately he has to choose because at the moment he can carry on splitting the difference because there isn't a Brexit deal. So the issues next week are a bit technical actually about precisely what kind of single market customs union arrangements do you want. And his position is deeply opaque in the amendments that he's moved. It's deeply opaque whilst making a move towards the pro-Europeans. It won't accept the Lord's amendments, but we won't accept the government's position either. The critical moment, though, for Jeremy will be October or November, when Theresa May presents her withdrawal.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I want the BBC to do its job as the national broadcaster being genuinely impartial. Let me be frank, Nick. I think you're great. I think almost all of the broadcasters that I deal with and the BBC are great. I think the thing is you're subjected to massive pressures. It's not easy doing these jobs. We're in a national crisis. Let's be clear. It's a very serious national crisis, holding the balance isn't easy. And I know you do your best.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The state would imply the government owns as they don't. I think there's too much state influence over. But the key issue here is have you got the balance right? And my argument has been that you've been too much splitting the difference, having one side on the other side on, not standing up for the facts. Now, to be fair, I think that you've been paying more attention to it recently. You have been calling them out more. And I hope when we get to what I hope will be the referendum on the Brexit terms and the BBC will play a crucially important role on that. I hope that you start calling out the Farage Easts when they start lying and manipulating the facts as they did last time.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I think that's true. Of course it's true. I've just come from Italy where everyone is obsessed with this populist far-right government that's taken office as well. And let me be clear, I think the BBC has a huge challenge in this circumstance because you're the state broadcaster needing to be impartial and all of that.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, it's extremely important that people who are moderate and sensible are not thought to be weak and a pushover. Because if we're weak and a pushover in the face of Nigel Farage, Jacob Reese-Smogg, and Michael Gove, then we will lose. We've got to be every bit as tough as them whilst being, of course, very reasonable in our arguments.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, do you know what the truth of the matter is? I think probably the people on my side of the argument who have generally been thought, as you said at the beginning, to be reasonable, moderate people, what we have got to do, and this is what I've been doing in the last six months, is we have got to be very, very vigorous in making our arguments.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that's been happening with the Brexiters across the piece, in my view. It's why I can never turn on a TV station or BBC radio for the moment without Jacob Breese Mock. They are already in. You may not have read.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, but nonetheless, he shouldn't have been on at all. And it was only when that happened I looked until all these appearances he'd made and the fact that not only had he been on that, he was pretty well on every broadcast channel as far as I could see regularly and had been built up over the years. Now why was that? It was clearly there's a big Brexit thing going on in the country and I respect that and when Brexit was riding high in terms of UKIP as a party, I think it was perfectly reasonable to have Nigel Farage on the reason though I think he's been on so much recently is because he just makes good box office. You know, if he goes on your other program, the Today program, or he's on question time, then it's good box office. He's incredible.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, do you know why it was that I got onto this BBC thing in a big way a few months ago? It was when Nigel Farage made his 33rd.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You're making a big mistake there, Nick. I'm not talking about the levers, I'm talking about the leaders of the Brexit movement. And there's a big, big difference between those two groups. I have huge respect for the British people, no respect at all for Nigel Farage, Michael Gove, Jacob Reese Mock, and these people who have been selling lies to the British people about how much better life will be after Brexit when actually what they're seeking to do is to play a far-right nationalist card that will leave the same British people worse off.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“After two thousand seven eight, in the early years the Brown Years, the state made again huge investments we spent vast amounts on public services every pothole in the country was fixed under my tenure, I can assure you, I literally went out searching for potholes because we were so desperate to invest in local public works that would make a big difference to employment. The big mistake, I think, there, and I'm being balanced, so I hope that my views therefore carry more weight, was austerity after 2010, that what happened was the combination of a very weak economy and the failure of wages to grow after 2007 and 2008 hand in hand with austerity and massive cuts in public sector budgets and in particular local authority budgets had two effects. The first is it slowed down the economy and meant that people who were dependent on public services got a worse deal. But the other thing that was crucially important is it was toxic in relation to immigration because as population was rising”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, on that one, I don't think that the case is strong against Labour because real wage growth was very strong until 2007 until the crash. Most people year on year were and felt better off. Their public services were a lot better. There was huge investment in communities, actually particularly in communities then in the Midlands and the north, where there was huge investment.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The American writer has been very good at this for a generation of having arguments about culture which in fact are straightforward arguments about economics. And that's what the Tory writers started to do with UKIP over the Brexit issue over the last 15-20 years.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Regional things for the devolved assemblies in Scotland and Wales. Tony reached for one on a set of EU reforms that nobody ever remembers now, but at the time seemed moderately important. And it was that that then led David Cameron to commit to a referendum first on any future changes to EU treaties, and then that led to the in-out referendum. Now, I don't think we were the major cause. The major cause of Brexit was Margaret Thatcher. And what became this far-right quest for wrenching ourselves out of the European Union, because it was seen by the far right and in due course, Nigel Farage, who's the most talented politician since Margaret Thatcher, apart from Tony Blair, have been extraordinarily effective. It became the answer to every ill in the country. And in particular, it became a way of doing right-wing politics without talking about right-wing things. So when what you actually wanted to do is to dismantle the social state, which is what Margaret Thatcher hated, remember she declares war on the European Union.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Several years before you had the full lights travel. That was a mistake. I think the Iraq war was a mistake. I think holding all the referendums we held was a mistake because the referendum, which had been an exceptional device in British government before, actually, to be blunt before Tony Blair, became a routine one. We held referendums on everything, you know.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I do say that in the book. I do say that we should and could have done more. I believe that we're moving in the right direction. There's nobody who would want to row back on the public service reforms that we did. Does anybody seriously think that our schools were better 20 years ago than they are now? Obviously not. Does anybody seriously think that the NHS was better 20 years ago than it is now? I think everyone accepts that in the public services, which is the area of policy that I worked for Tony Blair that we made big improvements. But could we have done more? Yes, and did we in some ways lay the conditions for Brexit as I look back on it as honestly as I can? I think we did. In a number of respects actually that were we didn't foresee at the time. It was clearly a big mistake not to have the transitional controls on immigration after 2004. That was a big mistake. We need to be completely open about it. If we'd had the transitional controls that remember every other major European country implemented then we wouldn't have had the level of migration from Eastern Europe that we had.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My dad has always been a sort of blare right without knowing it, actually. He has been a very strong trade unionist. He's passionate about people doing the right thing and doing the decent thing. He doesn't like people who scrounge off welfare. He thinks that people should work hard as he's worked hard. He thinks that the state should be there for those who can't look after themselves, but people's first responsibility is to do so. And he has always done so himself and done the very best he can for his kids. He desperately wanted to buy his own council flat. Why? Because Camden Council in the 1970s, I have to tell you, it was not a great manager of its council estates. I mean, you know, there was urine in the stairwells, there was graffiti on all the walls. I thought it was disgraceful then. And I've always thought that what we need is a Labour Party that actually stands up for the decent life of the working classes and not for a set of public services that frankly”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Don't know Don't know what's right. I do know that if she'd wanted to contact me at any stage in the last 30 years she could have done, particularly after the Daily Mail interview.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I thought she was dead. I only realised she was alive when the Daily Mail found her. And And the Daddy Mail found her Did an interview with them. Which was extremely emotional for me, but she then never made any contact with me after. And I thought, because I'm fairly easy to find, and if she was able to give the Daily Mail an interview, then she was certainly able to make contact with me, and she never did. I don't know why she didn't really, but I didn't know how to make contact with her. I mean, to be blunt, I could have found from the Daily Mail, and I'm sure the Daily Mail would have been delighted for me to make contact a great deal of publicity. But it has never happened”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On your own. And so my sister and I, we were there for, I was there for the best one from the age of three right through to the age of 11. So getting the management right is important. Social workers are hugely important. The thing that I'm proudest of that I've done since leaving government in 2010 was working with a brilliant young man called Josh McAllister, whose ex-teach first to set up frontline, which is a teach first equivalent for ambitious graduates to become social workers. It's taken off in a big way, it's really flourishing. Hundreds of graduates a year are going into it. And that is hugely important because young children, of course, who are completely, their fate is completely out of their hands, having a good social worker who makes the right choices for them and promotes the right options for them, whether it be children's home, fostering, boarding schools, all of these things. These are life-changing in each individual case.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The problem is there aren't easy solutions. I do think it's very important that we have outstanding managers of care homes because it's the leadership of care homes that matters more than anything else. I was extremely lucky. I mean, my life might not have taken any of the turns it took beyond the age of 10 if I hadn't had this wonderful lady who was the manager of the home.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Rather than that your mother's milk. But my dad and I, we never talked about politics. You see what he's doing. I think it was a kind of genetic thing almost. I've certainly had the gift of the gap from a very early age and I've always, though I've always been very centrist in that, I've always respected institutions and all that, I've always wanted to change them and improve them. And that goes back a long, long way in my life.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Wars and fighting and all that. And I want to go to Oxford. That was, I mean, at one level he was impressed, but another level he was disappointed. So when I ended up as a minister in the education department working for Alan Johnson, he thought this was fantastic. But he, it turns out, and I only learned this very recently because you're always learning things about your family, which I'd never known. His grandfather was mayor of Yalusa, which is the village in Cyprus where he lived before the... War with the British broke out in the 50s, and he came over to England. So he was extremely political. If Cyprus had remained stable and he'd stayed there, I think he could easily have become president of Cyprus. Really?”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My dad is extremely political. He was a postman for 35 years. Watch him before that, yeah. And was an official in the post office workers' union. His great hero was Alan Johnson, who in later life I came to be a minister working alongside and the greatest disappointment of my father's life is that I didn't go to Sandhurst because having fought the British Army in Cyprus literally fought them in the 1950s, he had them in huge regard and he regarded them as by far the best institution of the British state. And when I told him, look, Dad, I'm afraid I'm not really doing.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, definitely. They're your life. Yeah, definitely. When I edited my, I set up a newspaper. I was at primary school. And part of the reason I did it is I thought the school lunches were terrible and I thought they should be improved. I've always had plans wherever I've never been able since about the age of seven to see an institution without wanting to improve it. I wrote to the director of social services in Camden when I was nine saying what needed to be improved in the children's homes. It's just the way I've gone about life.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I've never been one for physical fighting mentally, yes, and a lot of survival skills which involved having a good sense of the tactics of every situation. So I always kept out of trouble when I could see trouble coming. I also quite early on learnt that being articulate mattered because the way I've always got out of difficult situations is by expressing opinions very firmly. So words can be”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There were some relationships there which were hugely important in my life. The manager of my children's home, who was Espanados, was one of the most loving, caring people I've ever met. She was totally without sentimentality and she was hugely ambitious for those of her kids who had the wherewithal and the desire to make something of it. And I was one of those and she gave me my first well, many of my great breaks actually in particular. She persuaded my social worker, who was basically in charge of my destiny, that the right thing for me to do at the age of 11 was to go to a boarding school”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, more of the children in my children's home went to jail than went to university. So when I look back on it, there were a lot of things that, to be blunt, I sort of blank out.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it's the only life that I knew, so I've never thought of myself in a self-pitying way as being unusual or exceptional. I mean, I knew there weren't many people at my primary school who lived in children's homes, but because I lived in a children's home, I thought it was for me the only life I knew, and I made the best of it. And I don't regret it at all because I've had a very unusual background. That means I sort of do pretty well understand people from all types of backgrounds. I understand what it's like to be extremely poor. I understand what it's like not to have a functioning family. I understand what it's like to have to struggle against the odds. And I think that this is a fantastic country because it's a country that makes all those things possible.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Brexit hasn't happened. Brexit does not happen for another 10 months. And between now and then are a whole series of parliamentary votes in House of Commons where no party has a majority and where we have the weakest Prime Minister since Neville Chamberlain, or perhaps Anthony Eden, you can debate the toss on that with no majority. So it's palpably obvious that Brexit both hasn't happened and needn't happen. The issue is who is going to make the strongest and best arguments and carry public opinion with them in the next six months. And you asked me why am I pitching myself into this? It's because this debate and this argument is not a Westminster village argument like some of the ones I've had in the past. It's not even an argument amongst policymakers which is roughly what I was engaged in in education, winning a policy battle. This is an argument for and with the public. It is the biggest argument that we will have with the public about what is the right thing for the country, probably in my lifetime. And I feel I have a duty to engage in it.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Lost her majority that this was going to be a very full on political battle. Now, I can do very full-on political battles, I just haven't put myself in the front line of doing them in the past.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Actually, I'm not sure I've got angry so much as determined to see that we don't commit a really serious error as a country. And also I am a politician. I've always sought to get big things done. Did education for the best part of 10 years when I can assure you my relations with the National Union of Teachers who burnt me in effigy outside the education department? There were famous occasions where I had to be spirited out of the back of the building when I was at transport of course I pioneered HS2. Well, I can assure you I was the least popular person in the Chilterns which has more lawyers per square inch than anywhere else in the world. And I've always been extremely determined but there were different ways of achieving objectives. Then my view was that as a public service reformer and a very serious one coalition building was vital and I went about that with extreme determination. I was determined to be cross-party, determined to build a broad head. It's been very clear to me now since the general election because the general election was the turning point when Trevor”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Biographer and COA friend. And actually, I think of him every day because he was passionate about Europe. He was also, of course, Britain's only president of the European Commission. I know with absolute certainty that he would have thought the right thing to do now was to fight the pro-European cause. And I haven't changed my views at all. The views which at the moment now make me an arch Ramona are precisely the views I held five years ago, ten years ago, 25 years ago. They're the reason why I joined the STP on my 18th birthday in 1981, because I was pro-European and didn't want the Labour Party taking us out of Europe. So it's the world around me.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think I've changed. I think the world around me has changed. I remember Roy Jenkins telling me that he had remained true to pretty well the views he held in 1939-40 when he was at Oxford all the way through his life.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The editor of the Daily Mail Paul Daker has announced he is stepping down after more than 25 years in charge, ending one of the most influential and at times controversial reigns in British journalism.”
2018-06-08 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Andrew Adonis One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source