YouSaid · the spoken record

Sam Gyimah

lines on the record: 33
first: 2018-02-02
most recent: 2018-02-02
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

“Yes, I think so at so many levels, as PPS, seeing a prime minister lose a vote in the Commons on a big foreign policy issue. Was just incredibly disappointing. But in terms of politically, I thought, what have we done?”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Brilliant about him watching him was that sense of just realizing that's the decision. That moment for me is one of his poignant moments in my political life so far because often you don't see the consequences of a decision in parliament so clearly and so starkly and I think if that decision had gone a different way Syria could be could be a different place today but I think it was Piers Morgan who tweeted after that vote David Cameron just got whacked or punished for what Tony Blair did. The shadow of Blair and what happened were very rack is why Ed Miliband decided to march his troops in opposition to that vote.”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it is a little bit unfashionable to talk about David Cameron's style, but I thought he was a classy operator. And I'll never forget on the first Syria vote which he lost by 13 votes and in a very sort of Camerones style I was going to be sitting behind him in the chamber. We didn't know how the vote was going to turn out. So I had two speeches, one for If he won, another for if he lost. And I put the speeches in my inside pocket and I kept trying to remember which speech was in which pocket. So I didn't give him the wrong one by accident when the vote was called. And in the end, I remembered I gave it to him and the words were very much his words he lost the vote and he just said I get it. And that was very David Cameron just quickly realizing what the moment was.”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I thought it was a role of the dice and I said that. I remember my politics tutor when I asked him once, you know, what is wrong with having the people decide? And he said to me, you never know whether they're answering the question that you are putting to them when you have a referendum. So I kind of think, okay, this is, and we had seen that in the AV referendum, which was supposed to be a referendum on a form of proportional representation, but it became, do you like whose popularity at plummeted when he entered coalition? So for me, it was a roll of the dice. You just did not know what was going to come out of this. And that made me slightly nervous.”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think David Cameron had arrived at a position where he thought actually a lot of people are focused on the Conservative Party, but I think he had arrived at a position where he had been actually been quite frustrated with the EU, you know, whether it was the fiscal compact. But I wonder what you thought.”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I learned a lot, right? I had not worked in central office, I hadn't been a counsellor, I'd had no formal political position when I became an MP. And my first job in politics was parliamentary private secretary, a prime minister, and I had a ringside seat, part observer, participant of the coalition era and David Cameron, who I thought was credible as Prime Minister. When you saw him”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, you mentioned Hezbollah Territory. I think I've got to be very careful here because These are kind of cases where you've got to actually look at all the facts. So, I mean, even though I said absolutely not, I'll say I would want to be able, I think you should look at those on a case-by-case basis. Looking at all the facts before you make a decision, and it won't be”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“University, well, we've got prevent, and I was very careful to see freedom of speech under the law, and I think prevent, although it's had its problems, wax by and large well and their national security concerns, and we should think about those. I'm not saying it's of a license to have anything, but I think it's just...”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Have laws around hate speech, so that's why I said freedom of speech within the law. And I think the characterization is a little bit unfair. From where I came from, as I said, I grew up under a dictatorship. And these things were new. And I think you can forget how incredibly powerful it is to be in a country where you can challenge other people. And people can see what they want to say within the law and be challenged.”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I bought it second hand, by the way. I got it second hand with Carly Rich. My boy was not his near it. But in other words,”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To challenge them. I think so. I think so long as we have freedom of speech within the law, right? So long as this is not a prescribed organization, I think that people should be challenged. The idea should be exposed to rigor. And I think that's what our university should be about.”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Would be so much that it wouldn't be a good idea. But it's interesting looking at universities now and the issue of free speech and looking at my time and my decisions when I was there. And my experience 20 years on is not the experience of people now. And I don't want to sort of say this, but free speech, I think, is and the ability as a student. I told you that being at Oxford is liberating. Just being in an environment where you can challenge, you can savor, you can listen to new ideas. That for me was the core of my university experience.”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The Oxford Union had a great tradition of inviting controversial speakers to be challenged. Nixon did his first out in After Watergate Other Union, OJ Simpson did his first public outing after his first trial at the Oxford Union. There's always been that tradition. And for me, I just thought I had a very big interest in international politics, what was happening in the Gulf was... And I thought we need to understand what's going on there. But he's not the only one. I even considered inviting the head of the BNP at the time to come and speak because I wanted them to be challenged. But then I was told the security.”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it was youthful exuberance. Probably someone came up with the idea. We thought it would be good fun. I think it was my farewell debate or something. I wanted to do something different for my farewell debate. That's so embarrassing. These are moments when I'm quite glad I can't visibly go red because there are certain memories you just bury deep down.”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I then get tapped on the shoulder by someone during the course of this debating class. Do you want to run for election? Why not? I'd seen these people up there never running any election before. And I thought why not? So I put myself forward. And there it begun and eventually became president.”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I enrolled on a debating class in the union, took debating classes. You taught you debated. I can't remember their names. No one in Parliament at the moment in Parliament. Rumour too”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Nothing wrong with fancy dress. You fell in love with her. I mean, do you fell in love with it? I loved it, but bear in mind, I wanted to be embarrassed and I thought debating is quite a good thing.”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It should have been alienation, but in some ways I just felt this is an incredible atmosphere. I'm lucky to be here. I felt extremely fortunate. And I'm just going to throw myself into it.”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Do you have one of those Hesseltonian things? Member of Parliament. I'd never been to the union. I'd never debated before. Been in my sixth form for two years. And most people think that going back to the colour thing, you arrive at Oxford, you are an outsider, you're different. In my Oxford College, I think there are probably only two black people in the entire college. And that my overriding feeling should be one of alienation. I don't belong. But in some ways it was the opposite. I felt Christ, no matter how quirky I was before, now I can find kindred spirits. There's nothing weird talk in politics or what you read in the newspaper at nine o'clock in the evening because there are a lot of other weirdos around. And if you want to talk about 18th century Eunuchs, you all find someone who shares that interest.”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, you'd understand that I don't want to go into what the options are, what we decide would be, obviously. The Treasury and Downing Street don't all have a view. But all I'm saying is, as I speak to students, I can feel that pain. And it's something that, as politicians, we should be alive to.”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I have huge sort of empathy with it. And you mentioned the books. I mean, the number of students who've said to me on these tours, buying the textbook and you find out that you've got to buy the textbook of your lecturer and there's a new edition every year and it costs £60 and that's a lot. Rent is a big issue I know on campus. It's basically cost of living. Students even complain have complained about having to pay to photocopy the essays. You've paid my fees, don't ask me to pay you to photocopy my essays by page when you're going to look at electronically and feedback electronically. So I have here something on the cost of living and I think that's why when I say when we look at the issue of student finance politically a lot of the political and debate is around fees. But I think if you're looking at solving the pain points for students, actually this”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“180 know what to do, and you hope that there'll be a way and you apply for this bursary here and you hope that something... Will happen. And at some level throughout my life, things have always been hard, you know, things had always been difficult. But it was the first time where It wasn't my mother soldiering through on our behalf that I had to It”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The first ever negotiation I'd done in my life, I just said to him, I think I'll get a good job afterwards and I'll be able to pay you back. And he looked at me and just chuckled and said, let me think about, and he came back. And he said, okay, they turned my rent into a loan, which I paid back on graduation. Did you break it at any stage? Did you think?”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Huge part of it, aspiration, yes. In terms of the internal drivers, yes. It's also the sense for me that the conservative message would allow me to make something of my life. But also being at Oxford was you said I was being at Oxford and being successful. It was a difficult time. I had financial difficulties with my college. I couldn't pay my rent because the support I was getting wasn't enough. Avoiding the bursa who cornered me one day, and he said, Look, you've got to solve this problem.”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You just confess you were pushing. Of course, and certainly my mother, she would have been very happy that I was pushy because she wanted us to do well. It was very clear. She just said, look, No inheritance for you, but if you take your education seriously, that's your inheritance. So that was the mindset I had.”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's not just because the political system I'd grown up in, but also the culture I'd grown up in. And as I studied history, and I just thought freedom, what it represents, being able to challenge views, critical things, I just thought this was absolutely amazing. And when I arrived at Oxford as an outsider,”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Calls for this, what you call a classic Tory CV, but in some ways it's not a classic Tory CV if you were to look at your et balls or your Ed Melibanzi, it's probably more in some ways too much of a classic Westminster CV rather than a.”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's only when I came back to the UK and my history teacher in the sixth form I went to a state at sixth form in Hertfordshire and the French Revolution was a big part of our course and through that he just opened my eyes to not just history but politics and the big ideas in politics, freedom, equality, opportunity and what they mean and I loved it. I love the course. I loved being in his classes and I wanted to be a lawyer. I always thought I wanted to be a lawyer but that shouldn't surprise anyone who's come across your second generation immigrants. Your parents want you to be a lawyer or engineer or a doctor and he told me to do PPE. It's why he advised me, he said, if I wanted to go to Oxford. I was quite pushy in those days. And he said, I think you should do PPE because it's a very broad course and it would be good for you. You can always go into the law later. That set me on the...”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A dictator. Mother was a nurse. And so politics never featured at all in my upbringing. And the reason why we were in Ghana is after my parents separate it. Three children in a row and at the age of thirty two she would have some support there soon. She was very family, and she is very much of that generation of African mothers who had to be both mother and father.”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, of course it does. It does. But also, it's very good to confound people. It's far more interesting that way than the other way. But there are, as you point out, many different influences. I didn't grow up in a political household. I didn't grow up in a household where even voting was something you did when we lived in Ghana. There were no elections. Jerry Rawlins had, according to power, as a result of a coup d'etat.”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They do. And I remember when I first became an MP, a number of, I would turn up at events during the AV referendum and people would immediately assume that I was the Labour spokesperson because it's black, it can't be Tory. There are many influences on my life”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There is definitely something there, and it's been very easy for people on my side of the political spectrum to say to young people you didn't experience the nineteen seventies, and if you did, you would run a mile from Jeremy Corbyn. But you're right to say for young people now, I mean, it's not just those at university, young professionals as well. Yes, they might like Netflix, they might use Uber and enjoy a lot of the fruits of capitalism, but there are some serious respects in which capitalism is not delivering for them. Wages and housing, particularly getting on the housing ladder. And I think that what we need to do on the conservative side. To convince them that capitalism can deliver for everyone. And that's not something you do overnight.”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think Brexit has a role to play. And for a lot of young people, they perceive the Conservative Party has become the Brexit Party, doing something that they are fundamentally opposed to. And therefore I think unless we talk about issues that are relevant to them. Whether it's housing, whether it's jobs, you know, the NHS or student finance, then our appeal will be like a jammed radio signal. It just wouldn't cut through. So I think to be able to cut through to them, we need to talk about the things that are relevant to them. There is also, the young haven't voted in big numbers. So I think politicians have tended to ignore them. But now the young are voting and are voting in bigger numbers, and I think, therefore,”
2018-02-02 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Sam Gyimah One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source