YouSaid · the spoken record

Lionel Barber

lines on the record: 66
first: 2020-12-01
most recent: 2020-12-01
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

“Well, I think, and I say this in the book, that, you know, I understand why it was necessary to rein in the deficit, which was at that time with a new coalition government, it was more than ten percent of GDP. I mean, it was huge. So at some point you needed to deal with this. And there were real worries, and I was just, I did speak to George Osborne at the time and economics editor and political team did as well. And, you know, there were worries that this new coalition government might fall. It could break apart. So we did support the government. What I would say, and I said in the book, is that we underestimated the damage to local government, to public services of austerity, and some commentators I may have always said, you know, you can write what you like in the columns, but Martin Wolfen.”
2020-12-01 · Intelligence Squared · The Powerful and the Damned, with Lionel Barber and Manveen Rana · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That September it literally felt the world financial system was melting down in front of our eyes a bit like a chocolate cake that had got overheated and it was pretty scary and I spoke to some of the principals like Steve Schwartzman I'm not a name dropper really but anyway you know they were worried too And it was really scary, and we know what the consequences were. The system was rescued through extraordinary action by the central banks, got a concentration of financial power plus a huge political legacy, which was the rise of national populism.”
2020-12-01 · Intelligence Squared · The Powerful and the Damned, with Lionel Barber and Manveen Rana · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, we've got some of the story. We've got a piece of it. We've got a piece of the jigsaw. And, you know, I give credit in the book to Jillian Tet. She understood that actually the risk was building up in the system and alluded to it on many occasions. She also raised questions with others in the markets team that I bolstered at the time about the credit ratings agencies and their flawed business model. They were too close to the banks. But you know what? Loads of other people missed the story. The Bank of England missed the story. The Treasury missed the story. The IMF missed the story. We got a piece of it, but we didn't connect the dots. And if I have some Chinese self-criticism maybe to make, it's I didn't put enough of Jillian and others on the front page, it was in the paper. But lastly, you know what it was like when I described this in the book?”
2020-12-01 · Intelligence Squared · The Powerful and the Damned, with Lionel Barber and Manveen Rana · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I made the changes and we were on our way, and then the global financial crisis came, and that was the biggest story in two generations. And hey, we're off to the races.”
2020-12-01 · Intelligence Squared · The Powerful and the Damned, with Lionel Barber and Manveen Rana · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know what? I was fifty I'd been a foreign correspondent. I knew I was a pretty good foreign correspondent, and I got the job, so I had a mandate, and you can't believe how important that is if you're a leader, because you think, you know what? This is my shot. And if I screw up, then I'm going to have to leave. But a lot of people say, and I don't want to sound arrogant, but a lot of people say, weren't you worried, weren't you fearful? I took serious advice from Ben Bradley, from Stan O'Neill at Merrill Lynch on how to cuss cot, from Howard String at Sony, this is all in the book. You know, how do you communicate? And I just came out with a clear message. A few phrases, you know, we're in a digital revolution. Nobody had a recipe, the absolute answers to everything, but I set a direction, I set standards.”
2020-12-01 · Intelligence Squared · The Powerful and the Damned, with Lionel Barber and Manveen Rana · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, Mamvin, seeing as we're amongst friends, I think I can tell you. You know, I do reveal a bit of that story. Quite a lot of the story. And, you know, just so you don't think that I come across as Iago, I was lawyer. I would never have suggested that. I stayed, I've worked with Andrew Gowers. You know, I was in charge of America. And I supported the team. Christopher Freeland was the deputy editor, now very famous in Canada. She's probably going to be in the next prime minister. I supported that team, even when they were making mistakes. But, you know, at one point, I just thought, you know what, somebody needs to say something. So I did say something to the proprietor. And when I got the job and I didn't ask for the job, crucially, I said, you've got to make a change. I don't care who it is, you've got to make a change.”
2020-12-01 · Intelligence Squared · The Powerful and the Damned, with Lionel Barber and Manveen Rana · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And, you know, raise prices because we couldn't play in the same sandpit as Ripper Murdoch's The Times at £1. We were worth more than a pound. So when I came back and I got the job, I just said, you know what, we're going for a return to the gold standard. That's how I describe it, that speech to the newsroom. I think a few people are a bit glum because they thought I was talking about economics. Actually, I was talking about news and focus on business and financial news. And the second big thing was to say where the paper of globalization. We're going to be a global paper. We've got 100 foreign correspondents. We can do it. And we did. And look, you know, I tell the story, it's not the main story in the book. But we got to doubled the readership, one million plus paying readers. Not bad.”
2020-12-01 · Intelligence Squared · The Powerful and the Damned, with Lionel Barber and Manveen Rana · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it wasn't a fateful lunch, it was a fantastic lunch. I got just given the best job in world journalism. And, you know, I'd watched from New York. You know, the FT lost its way a bit. It sort of became a bit too general news. They wanted to be Britain's business newspaper. And I kind of think the moment for me that I kind of took a deep breath was when we decided to produce a daily sports page. And I love, you know, I'm a very competitive cricketer and rugby player. I was. And I thought, well, you know, we're not, that's not our comparative advantage. So I think we just needed to refocus on the core mission.”
2020-12-01 · Intelligence Squared · The Powerful and the Damned, with Lionel Barber and Manveen Rana · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, he was in California. He's a very senior bowl and seasoned bolster, but I couldn't believe how he was saying, well, we don't need to talk about the election. This was three weeks before because it's going to be a landslide. Let's talk about the Senate. And I never, ever thought that there would be a landslide for Joe Biden. And I think the pollsters yet again got it wrong because they just think that this old-fashioned view of ringing people up and thinking they're going to tell you the truth. I mean, the whole point, there are lots and lots of shy Trump voters. And Trump has a base. That base has been unbelievably loyal, almost to a fault, so I thought it would be harder. Remember very few presidents in modern times are unseated after one term.”
2020-12-01 · Intelligence Squared · The Powerful and the Damned, with Lionel Barber and Manveen Rana · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What I was surprised by was when I was in a call with a top pollster who I better remain nameless but just let's say he was”
2020-12-01 · Intelligence Squared · The Powerful and the Damned, with Lionel Barber and Manveen Rana · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“out all the untruths that he told, so you are seeing something quite unprecedented, and it shows you the degree of polarization in America at the moment.”
2020-12-01 · Intelligence Squared · The Powerful and the Damned, with Lionel Barber and Manveen Rana · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that the media in America is making amends for the mistakes that they made in two thousand sixteen, where they gave Donald Trump enormous airtime. You will remember it wasn't just Fox News, but the boss, then Les Moonvis of CBS, said I don't know whether you know Trump may not be good for America, but he's great for our ratings. And they gave Donald Trump a free pass the media, the networks particularly saw him as a theatrical figure he was. He was a great performer, but they should have done a better job at contextualizing and writing. So I think now maybe they've pulled the trigger a bit too soon by cutting him off and appearing to censor him. Personally, I would have let the spool, I would have let the tape run, and then come in for ten minutes.”
2020-12-01 · Intelligence Squared · The Powerful and the Damned, with Lionel Barber and Manveen Rana · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's the former White House Chief of Staff, Secretary of State that I actually interviewed in the book and we talk about Baker. The man who ruled Washington and they ended up not with Jim Baker because he said look we've got to count the votes but it seems a clear outcome but they ended up with Rudy Giuliani. That's definitely third choice. So I think there will be a transition. Maybe the worrying thing just the thing to keep your mind what is going on is Donald Trump, the president, cleaned out the civilian leadership of the Pentagon this week, sacked the defense secretary and he's putting other people in areas of government. So this is a sort of, you know, I think it's more a smokescreen than a coup, but it does need watching.”
2020-12-01 · Intelligence Squared · The Powerful and the Damned, with Lionel Barber and Manveen Rana · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Seventy million or so voted for Donald Trump, but many more to five million more voted for Joe Biden, the comeback kid. Now, I think that Joe Biden won, there's no evidence of fraud, and that Donald Trump, his strategy, if you can call it that, is actually very weak in two respects both on defence and offence. The default is there was voter fraud, we're going to the courts actually there's been no evidence and the judges have rejected the allegations, and second the offence which is to cast doubt on the outcome and essentially cast out on the legitimacy just it hasn't worked. And I think the most telling point was when you heard we need a gym basis.”
2020-12-01 · Intelligence Squared · The Powerful and the Damned, with Lionel Barber and Manveen Rana · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, first of all, it's great to be with you and the Intelligence Squared audience that I can't see but I can feel So the election, the good news is that more Americans voted than at any time in a century.”
2020-12-01 · Intelligence Squared · The Powerful and the Damned, with Lionel Barber and Manveen Rana · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
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2020-12-01 · Intelligence Squared · The Powerful and the Damned, with Lionel Barber and Manveen Rana · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source