YouSaid · the spoken record

Mark Sedwill

lines on the record: 42
first: 2021-01-15
most recent: 2021-01-15
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

“Do you share? Yeah, I'd love to know who that was. I'm not sure I would share it in that, and it's not something I would say about myself, but I guess I'm quite flattered by it.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right, I'm not going to answer it because it's a question that I don't think anyone should answer because as soon as I say you give an answer, someone else has to put someone else who has operated in that world in a more difficult position.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Copy is not the originals, obviously, as a farewell gift at the last cabinet I attended. I remember joking then that this was what these two people were. And of course, the first cabinet secretary ended up executed for treason and the first National Security Advisor ended up dying of old age and has been revered ever since. And perhaps that had been a lesson for me.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When I was National Security Advisor, I found an engraving of Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth Imaster, but really, he was really a policy operator. He wasn't just an intelligence head. And so I put that in my office as National Security Advisor and saw him as the first National Security Advisor. When I moved down to take over as Cabinet Secretary as well in the tragic circumstances of Jeremy Hayward's illness, I took the picture with me and I decided I needed to try and find something alongside it and we managed to find a very similar picture of Thomas Cromwell who in effect was Henry VIII's prime minister but actually really given that he was his own prime minister sort of the cabinet secretary of the time so it was a sort of it was a bit of a sort of an ironic joke about these two guardian angels one the first cabinet secretary won the first national security advisor keeping watch on me and when the PM gave me”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I'm absolutely not. And so, of course, as I said, I'm flattered by the opportunities and I'm still doing one or two things. But I'm also very much enjoying the shift to a new kind of mix in my career. I did 30 years in public service. I've probably got another easy 15 years of active working life to go. And so I'm very much thinking in terms of this is another third of my entire career and having a different blend is one I'm at least for now enjoying very much.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But yeah, my guess is that he was hoping that the demonstration would intimidate the legislators, but not necessarily actually get into the building and present a physical threat to them. And of course, I think once he realized that it had gone too far, you saw him back off pretty quickly. But even a president seeking to use a crowd to intimidate legislators, even if it got out of hand, even if it went well beyond what he was expecting, is still a pretty extraordinary breach of his duty as president.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I don't doubt that. And I don't think the answer to conspiracy theories that he has sometimes fueled is to have conspiracy theories of the alternate view.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To the members of the House of Representatives and the Senators, and so on as well. Of course, incited by the President, which was also an utterly unprecedented event.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it is extraordinary. And last week's scenes were absolutely appalling to see for the first time in American history the Confederate flag a symbol of secession and slavery and so on being held up in the chamber of the Senate Chamber, I think it was. It never even happened during the Civil War. So it was an appalling incident. The thing we have to keep in mind, however, was it was also major security failure around the Capitol building. And we've had riots in this country, we've had riots in Parliament Square. We've had Winston Churchill's statue defaced and vandalized and so on in Parliament Square. And they've never made it into the houses of Parliament. And I think what turned this from a riot of the kind that we've seen here and dealt with and had to handle into essentially a constitutional crisis was partly because they got into the Capitol building itself and were able to present that kind of threat.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Conscious of that legacy. We were conscious that the confidence that people have in intelligence being declassified and judgment of that kind being made, there was still the shadow of Iraq all those years later.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think we are. I think it's less the sort of loss of appetite for the use of the use of the military. If we face the kind of threat we faced after 9-11 or something different, then my own view is that we could easily find ourselves back into expeditionary campaigns. If we conclude that's the right way to deal with the threat. So I don't think it's that. I think the legacy of Iraq is the one you referred to. And certainly when we were dealing with Salisbury, for example, and taking declassifying intelligence, taking it to allies, making the case that this was clearly a Russian state attack and we needed to act accordingly, it was in the backs of our minds that the last time that had been tried in order to secure collective action by allies was over Iraq back in 2002, 2003.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, I've seen that, and of course, I mean, it's immensely flattering to have that to be considered that I might be credible for something of that kind. It's some way off. I mean, I'm tempted to say if the ball came loose at the back of the scrum, you might recognize the analogy. And as a huge rugby fan, I would undoubtedly see if I could grab it. It's a long way off. It's the only time it's ever been done by someone who wasn't a politician, was right at the beginning of NATO's life. It's always been defence, foreign ministers, prime ministers, etc. So I think one has to recognize the realities of this. But of course, I'm flattered that people think I might be credible for it and I'm deeply committed to the organization.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've always said I'm going to keep the relationships, the private conversations I've had with the prime ministers I've served, like the confessional. And even though that's a very lighthearted question, I'm going to stick to that even on this occasion. But he and I don't have a formal relationship. We chat to each other in a very relaxed way and use the kind of language that you would expect two men of a similar age would find themselves using on whatever subject it might be.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The point is, I never, definitely, having been through the things I've been through, Nick, it definitely gave me a sense of perspective. It's like, okay, well, whatever. It's just, it's kind of sticks and stones. Yeah, okay, I don't like it. Not really my thing, but stuff it, you know, life's too short. And I've had worse.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not in that way, that would be because you're not, I mean, that would make me sound completely up myself. So no. But I guess the point is, of course, I was frustrated by that. And if you have one of my private office from the time, one of my private secretaries from the time in here, they would probably be able to give you a fairly colorful description of some of the language I might have used as I sort of read something of that kind. And I sort of blow off my frustration and then kind of just get on with the day. I guess the point. But if you get off,”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's right, and actually it was happenstance we were there, we'd been cut off by the weather and then took that route through the foothills of the Himalayas, the Karakoram and so on, and encountered this extraordinary event, encountered Michael Palin and his team filming it, and the locals asked us to stay and they showed us all the usual extraordinary hospitality and asked me to throw in the ball at the beginning and award the prizes at the end. And it was just one of those remarkable moments you sometimes encounter in a diplomatic career.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It might well have done. Of course, neither of us was the target, as we understood it, and this is what we heard later. President Sheriff, General Sheriff, he was the president of Pakistan at the time, was due to go to the main polo match the following day. And I just happened to be sitting in the chair that he would have been sitting in. So presumably, if it was targeted at anyone, it was targeted at him. He survived, I don't know how many assassination attempts during his...”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Afterwards, fortunately, the part of that story that I don't think I've ever told was Michael Palin was filming his Himalaya series at the time and was actually at the same polio match. And we found some photos the other day. We weren't at all on the program because obviously he was focusing on the local culture and this experience. But we found some photographs, obviously, the other day sitting chatting to him during this match.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I mean, you've got to be very careful about thinking you look after yourself when the other bloke is armed. But I am good at keeping my head. And the key thing about looking after yourself is to keep your head. It's not like it is in the movies. It's to keep your head and stay calm. And if you can keep your head and stay calm and keep your tone of voice calm and all the rest of it, then you can usually extract yourself from a situation. Fortunately, I've never had to rely upon my own personal physical capabilities in that way. When I was in Afghanistan, I had some brilliant Royal Military Police and other bodyguards who, if they thought I was under threat, grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and got me out of the way.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you're dealing with cool, competent professionals, heavily armed, threatening as they might be, you can be pretty confident that you're only going to get hurt if they really intend to and they've thought about it. And that's something you can deal with. When the incident that you referred to was when we were trying to get into one of Saddam Hussein's palaces, because not because we thought he wasn't there at the time, and not because we thought the weapons were there, but we thought the documents were there. And we were stopped by some very young, highly committed, clearly sort of ideologically trained, etc. Some very young guards from the special security apparatus who were clearly terrified not of us. We were unarmed weapons inspectors with UN blue hats on, but of the consequences for them if they got it wrong and they let us in somewhere that they shouldn't. And being faced with a very young man”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think probably that was. I mean, although actually I probably came closer to being killed on several occasions when I was in Afghanistan, what, 10, 15 years after that, or indeed in Pakistan in that incident you referred to before, I think there is nothing as frightening as facing a frightened man with a gun.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think two things the sense of purpose so you get a sense of common purpose in a crisis and all the usual boundaries and institutional frictions and so on are just set aside and people just you know rally around work together focus on a common objective governments are complex organization it's managing lots and lots of different pressures and so on and in a crisis you manage to push through those things and pursue the objective you also bring all your capabilities to bear and cut through some of the bureaucracy and process that exists much of the rest of the time some of good reasons of course because without checks and balances you can get things really badly wrong so it isn't that you should always be in crisis management mode but there are some things about common purpose cutting through things getting people to work together operating as teams being impatient of obstacles in a crisis that I think we should apply in normal circumstances as well”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not exactly, but the sense that this was something wholly different. It was a use of a nerve agent in a quiet English town. And the callousness of putting the lives of potentially hundreds, certainly, of citizens at risk if it had got into the water supply, for example, or if it had simply, given how lethal it was, if it had simply spread more widely, was profoundly different to anything that we had experienced before.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, it's difficult to know whether it would have been thousands, but definitely a very large number of people were put at risk by that. It was a really reckless attack. We didn't know exactly how wide it went. So the cordon that had to be imposed by the emergency service in Salisbury was really wide to start with. The two culprits traveled to and from Salisbury by train. They were in a hotel in London, etc. And so we had a series of cordons. And actually, in many ways, we were fortunate that more people, given the recklessness of the attack, chucking away the perfume bottle and so on, we were fortunate that more people weren't affected by it.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I mean, I wouldn't have quite put it that way, but the idea of getting people who wouldn't have thought of coming into public service to make a contribution is a good thing in my view. And I always said that, including after he put out that blog, getting some different people is great. White or should be ventilated. And we do need different kinds of people. But that isn't what civil service or public service reform is fundamentally about. And it should be about introducing the same kind of changes into the way the state provides services and so on to the citizen as we've seen in the private sector. So digital delivery and use of data and all of those things, the way that we've transformed much of our economy should be the way we transform government.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's something in what they say, but I mean, obviously you've quoted somewhat selectively there. I think actually Lord Agnew said Whitehall. He didn't talk about the wider civil service. And people, but I can't exactly record. Too often, frankly, when politicians talk about civil service reform, they really mean Whitehall reform. And White Hall is like 10% of the civil service, and the civil service is something like 10% of the wider public service. So it's a tiny fraction of what they are responsible for, the five and a half million people in public service. And also too often, talk of civil service reform boils down to moving more Mandarins out of London and getting some different kinds of clever people, usually more congenial to the politicians concerned, into the White Hall process.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I would have a moment Yes, yes, because that would have been my professional duty to do so. And of course, we all have, even as professional civil servants, we all have certain boundaries and we would, you make those judgments personally. But my job as Cabinet Secretary absolutely would have been to have served him with the same loyalty I'd shown to the two prime ministers. I did serve. And during the election campaign, we had exactly as you would expect conversations with him and his team about his program, about the way they want to govern. And that's the job.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But that's the job. That's the job of a professional and impartial civil service. So, what if the election outcome had been different? And Jeremy Corbyn, were Prime Minister right now. He would have taken at least on social and economic policy the country in a radically different direction. And the job of a professional civil service is to respect the outcome of an election and implement the program of the government and the job of the cabinet secretary is to form a productive relationship with the Prime Minister, the people our fellow citizens have chosen. And if you can't do that, you're either in the wrong job, but also it would be really damaging to the institutions of government in this country, because you'd end up having to have many more political appointees like the Americans do, and you would lose that balance, I think, we have in our system, which I think we should be proud of, between a professional civil service and indeed wider public service led politically that can serve different”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Send him a text. Yep. We still maintain contact. And of course, I'm still doing some work for him, sharing a G7 panel, so I'll be attending some of the summit meetings that he'll be in charge of. We stay in touch quite regularly. As I say, we were, we had a good friendly relationship before he became prime minister and it's continued both throughout the Senate.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“After I left, I haven't seen him, or after I actually include, well, during while I was there, but also after I decided to go. I haven't seen him since he left, but that's partly because neither of us has been anywhere near London, really, in the last few months. I haven't been in touch with him since then, but I'm sure you've stayed in touch.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, not really. I mean, actually, the relationships at the center were always very good. And I had a good relationship. Obviously, still do with the Prime Minister and had a perfectly productive, friendly relationship with Dom Cummings as well. Indeed, we had a drink and so on from time to time and chewed some of these issues over.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's been completely overwritten since. He and I have a very good and often quite jokey relationship even at these moments of high tension, often the best way to maintain your resilience is to maintain a certain, often gallows humour in them. And it was one of those exchanges. He said he was in charge and there was a bit of a silence because I think the civil servants in the room were wary of appearing to supersede ministers with a group of ministers in the room because obviously in the end ministers are in charge. Therefore there was a slightly awkward moment. He then said, is it you? And I said, no, I think it's you. And then we both burst out laughing. And I think, as I recall pointed at Man Hancock, who I think was on the screen, I said, no, we think it's him. And so it was just one of those things. And then someone mischievous somewhere in the system decided to turn it into this moment of high tension, which frankly neither I nor Boris Johnson would have recognized from the exchange.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Nick, I was referring to the people rather than the system and so on as a whole, because frankly, it's too early to reach that conclusion. We aren't through this yet, and how well the UK has done compared to others, we'll have to see. Clearly, there are some lessons for us and everyone else to learn. But the point I was making was, of course, people are focused on the things and the media focused on the things that haven't gone well and so on. But we mustn't forget just what did go well, not only in the healthcare system, but in the commitment and creativity of much of the public service in seeking to tackle this unprecedented challenge. And I'm very proud of those people and still out.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think that's right, to be honest. All the meetings were happening, all of the work was being done and decisions were being brought to the right group of ministers, particularly that core group of ministers, the Prime Minister and the key sort of inner group, the quad, as it was known, in order to work through the issues. I think the issue about decisions did we take the right decisions at the right time was much more about simply wrestling with all of the issues and trying to balance off the public health risks and the economic impact and the sense in which the public would be able to endure the kind of restrictions that we were imposing. All of that was unknown at the time. And that was the thing that was most challenging about this. I've been through many, many crises in my career, and you mentioned a couple right at the head of the interview, but the nature of this crisis, the all-encompassing nature of it and the prolonged nature of it was of a different order to anything or anyone else had experienced.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know he's an Ellion character and he's very good at maintaining his confidence, but I think everyone was, not so much that, but worried that it would debilitate him for a considerable period, although none of us obviously had ruled that fear out”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It wasn't so much that, it was the fact that certainly no time in my memory had we had a prime minister, we'd have prime ministers who'd gone in for routine operations before, but a prime minister who was going in too intensive care when the risk of him being very seriously ill, maybe even Dying of the disease was not negligible, shall we say, it was not far from zero. And just the impact that would have had was clearly a strong impact both emotionally but also politically on everyone involved.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of course, we don't have the 25th Amendment here, a phrase which I guess to your listeners, if I'd used it even a few weeks ago wouldn't have meant much, but has suddenly been on all of the front pages. We do have cabinet government, we do have procedures in place if a prime minister is incapacitated, very well rehearsed in the national security area, of course, because it might simply be a prime minister that's out of contact and you need to be able to have others able to take decisions at pace if there's a national security crisis. But we discussed with the Prime Minister what the arrangements would be if he were incapacitated, we'd agreed with him he'd made the decision that Dominic Ra's first secretary would step in and convene cabinet, etc. and exercise those responsibilities. Although it isn't written down, actually it's pretty well rehearsed in the British Constitution. It's been different in different governments. So I sense there's a buff.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We'd already moved Nick to remote working mostly at that period anyway, and we were into the first lockdown. And so actually I was actually coming under pressure. I recall from some of my colleagues to work more from home because they said if I didn't, I wasn't setting the right example to get other people to do the same. Obviously, if the boss is in, everyone feels they kind of have to be in. And so I was already trying to work actually from my flat in town rather more in any event. And so we got to the stage where government was really being done by Zoom and by video conference. I mean, of course, there are some constraints and they had to sort of ship some of the more highly classified papers to me, but that was only straightforward thing to do given I was in town. So there wasn't really a stage at which we thought that meant or me being out meant it was a concern. I was still able to work during the period I was unwell, just chairing meetings by Zoom and so on as well. It was the moment when the Prime Minister”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Did I mean to be honest? I was really lucky. I had a really light bout. Prime Minister and I are pretty much the same age. I think I don't think it's a massive secret to your listeners that he's about four months older than me, as I like to remind him from time to time. But we're basically the same age. And of course, therefore, have quite a lot of experiences and so on in common. And I had it at the same time as him. And I was really lucky I had a really light battle. I felt unwell for about two days. Obviously, I isolated for the requisite period as one does, got tested, but really I just felt unwell. I had that sort of viral feeling, you know, tiredness and so on for a couple of days and then was on the men.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That crept up on us somewhat because the original hope was that it might be contained within China or at least within China in the immediate neighborhood. And of course news from there was always heavily filtered. Your reporters struggled to find out exactly what was going on. And so I think that sense then of it seeping across the world gradually sort of came up on us. I think the moment at which probably most of us and probably the media too realized just what the sheer impact of this disease was going to be was when we started to see some of the pictures of hospitals and so on under pressure in Western European countries. And I think that was probably the moment at which, not intellectually, but kind of emotionally, we appreciated the sheer impact that this was going to have on our healthcare system, society, economy and so on.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Last time I grew up, I think I was a student, and I haven't decided whether I'm going to keep it yet, but there's quite a lot of gray in it, I've noticed, which definitely gives me the rural vibe.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Course, there's a bit of that. I've definitely felt the benefits of decompressing. And I had a pretty frenetic career, almost every job I did was high pressure one way or another, certainly for the last 10 years. So, yeah, the opportunity to change pace, to have a better work-life balance, to provide a bit of support to the family. We've made quite a lot of sacrifices too as I sort of pursued my career, particularly when I was away for a long period. My wife was an effective single mother during that period. And right now, to be supporting our daughter, she's, of course, remote schooling like all the other kids in the country.”
2021-01-15 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Sedwill One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source