YouSaid · the spoken record

Simon Hart

lines on the record: 55
first: 2025-04-07
most recent: 2025-04-07
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

“Absolutely triggers Alistair triggered him back in 1997. Aztecs extraordinary effects like sort of electrodes being attached to him. There are lots of things we should get excited and agitated about, feel strongly about, but it's always been a sort of weirdly totemic issue for labor. It was never a totem. I wish the whole thing had never happened. I'd never tried to conceal that. But Fraus and I, I think John Prescott was in your gang at the time. Tony, though, you know, you're much read Tony was much more sanguine about the whole thing. And I think when he wrote his diary, he said it was one of the biggest mistakes he ever made. So I suspect one of those things in another 10 years, we'll still be having the same argument. And 99.9% of the population who might be listening will be saying, what on earth are you going on about?”
2025-04-07 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 128. Whips, Chaos, and secrets from Westminster (Simon Hart) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But it does not refer either to the House of Lords, by the way, who've risen above all of that or whether the hunting ban 2003, whatever it was, was effective or not. But the one thing I suppose I should say is that you've kept me occupied for 20 years plus, so I suppose I should be grateful for that.”
2025-04-07 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 128. Whips, Chaos, and secrets from Westminster (Simon Hart) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Whether it was that description or mine, it didn't actually ever come up. Nobody said I'm worried about the state of democracy. That was never an issue. I think I'm worried about it for lots of reasons. That's probably not one of them.”
2025-04-07 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 128. Whips, Chaos, and secrets from Westminster (Simon Hart) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a difficult argument, and don't get me wrong, but I think of all of the things that the current government and your government should have been doing, actually, is it the thing which people, when I, you know, the classic cliche here, when I was knocking on doors in five general elections, I was the number of people who said, you know what? The thing which is really troubling me the most about my future and my life, my income, my standard of living is the existence of 92 hereditary peers was never once ever racist.”
2025-04-07 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 128. Whips, Chaos, and secrets from Westminster (Simon Hart) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, 20 something years old, Alistair, and the debate is still raging. So I don't know whether that speaks volumes for my effectiveness or your ineffectiveness at the time. But yeah, it is weird, isn't it? And when you look at what else is going on in the world, I have to ask myself, why are these things even still really on the political radar? I mean, I remember thinking back in 1997 or 1998, whenever it was, surely there's new vibrant, lively Labour government. That's how it was described to us by you, I think, had a greater set of priorities. So I thought it was a bit of a waste. I thought it was a bit of a distraction then. And I think it's a bit of a distraction now.”
2025-04-07 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 128. Whips, Chaos, and secrets from Westminster (Simon Hart) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source