Derek Laud - The Problem With Immigrants

Full transcript: Derek Laud on London Real

4:16 Brian Rose: This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Derek Lorde, who is a former speechwriter and advisor to conservative members of parliament, including the Prime Minister’s John Major and Margaret Thatcher. You write for The Independent and the Mail on Sunday, and are author of the book The Problem with Immigrants. In 2005, you were a contestant on the television show Big Brother and Almost One.

4:37 And on top of all that, you were the first black master of Fox sounds in the UK. Welcome to London Real.

4:44 Derek Laud: Thank you very much.

4:46 Brian Rose: It’s nice having you here. Our former guest, Chris Eubanks, the world title boxer and fascinating man that he is.

4:54 He called me on the phone and he said, Brian, you must have this man on your show. He is the most eloquently spoken black man I’ve ever met. And I almost dropped my phone. And I said, well, you know, if Chris said that, we should probably have you on. So thank you for coming.

5:09 Derek Laud: Not a bit. Not a bit.

5:10 Brian Rose: You have one of the most fascinating CVs I’ve ever seen. You’ve done so many different things with your life. I don’t really know where to start.

5:18 You are an immigrant yourself because you were born here, but your parents were from Jamaica, right?

5:25 Derek Laud: Correct.

5:26 Brian Rose: Similar to Chris’s, right?

5:28 Derek Laud: That’s exactly right.

5:29 Brian Rose: So we have that in common, probably.

5:32 Derek Laud: That’s probably about all that we have in common. But I like him and I’ve known him for a very, very long time.

5:41 Brian Rose: How did you know Chris and your relationship to him?

5:45 Derek Laud: Well, indeed, it’s a very good question because he was, I think, traveling on a flight back from the United States, I think New York, and he sat next to a man called Sir John Beckwith. John Beckwith is more famous for having a socialite niece called Tamara Beckwith.

6:07 But in fact, he’s a very distinguished businessman, British businessman. And he sold his company in 1990, London and Edinburgh Trust, which was a property company for 520 million pounds cash in 1990. And he set up then a company called Pacific Investments, which was a vehicle to invest his own family money. And it was primarily concerned with private equity finance. And I was working for John.

6:41 Brian Rose: So he introduced you to…

6:43 Derek Laud: So Chris came to the office for a meeting with John on the back of having sat next to him on the flight back home to London. And John asked me to be present at that meeting. So that’s how we met and we remained, we remained friends for a very, very long time.

7:04 Brian Rose: You’re very different people.

7:06 Derek Laud: Yes.

7:06 Brian Rose: You were in politics. He was in boxing.

7:09 Derek Laud: And I don’t like boxing and he doesn’t like politics. So it couldn’t get more difficult.

7:15 Brian Rose: You told me earlier that you’re the only man who can get away with punching Chris Eubank.

7:21 Derek Laud: Oh, yes. And I’ve done it several times. And he’s amazingly gentle. And it’s something else that I learnt, not just from Chris, but also from Lennox Lewis, that I also know another Jamaican, another great, great, great man.

7:35 And he is a gentle giant. And what they both taught me, which was something I hadn’t thought of before, is that they can kill with one punch. And that therefore means that they have to be exceptionally disciplined people and they can never lose their temper. I mean, I lose my temper as a drop of a hat, and it has no consequences really, apart from me shouting a bit. But if they did, just think what the consequences of my being.

8:12 Brian Rose: Yes, and Chris talked about that on the show. And as far as how you have to, you know, a man who has these skills has to be careful not to use them because you’re so much more powerful than the people around you. And so he said that takes tremendous responsibility when you’re built like that.

8:30 Derek Laud: So when I’m punching him, they seem just so calm. It doesn’t do anything.

8:34 It’s water off a duck’s back, you know, just smiles.

8:37 Brian Rose: You know, we had an amazing two, three hours I spoke here with Chris, and he must have recited 12 pieces of prose from art. First I didn’t know he was reciting prose, and then once I realized he was, I was listening. But I had a coffee with him at the Dorchester. I’m sure you’ve had coffees with him at the Dorchester.

8:53 Derek Laud: He loves it there.

8:54 Brian Rose: And he had like a quadruple espresso, and I was meeting him to talk about something else, and he said, Brian, I watched one of your videos, and you were swearing. And he said, you do not need to swear. And he went off for 20 minutes about how a man cannot buy respect. A man cannot buy honor.

9:12 A man cannot. And I don’t swear anymore on camera. But enough about Chris. Take me back to, can you take me back to politics in the 90s, because I got to this country, funny enough, I think it was the day Tony Blair was elected, which I think was July 5th, 1997. I arrived here to work.

9:33 And so a lot of us don’t remember the politics before that. They don’t remember the John Major days and the Thatcher times. But you were there. And I just wondered how you got there, what it was like back then. You yearn for the old days, or how much different is it now?

9:49 It feels like the days of the polished media politician where Clinton and Blair took a note from that. Or is that just my simplistic way of looking at it?

9:59 Derek Laud: No, I don’t think it is simplistic. And I think it’s not a bad analysis either. But what I would also say is that there are people in their 20s and 30s in this country that won’t remember what Britain was like in the mid-1970s.

10:14 I remember the three-day week. I remember the lights going out. I remember having supper by candlelight, not because I was a romantic. It was just because of necessity, because there was industrial strife in Britain. Still from the war years?

10:35 Brian Rose: The economy hadn’t recovered?

10:38 Derek Laud: No, it was because we were a unionized, corporatist economy. So nothing could happen in Britain in those days without trade union cooperation, without trade union consent. It was almost as if the elected government had no power apart from that that was conferred upon by the trade unions. And bargaining over conditions necessary, I’m sure, to advance progress, bargaining over wages always desirable to want more money to do what you do and probably do very well, was very prevalent in Britain in the 70s and the 1980s.

11:38 And before the 1979 general election, the Labour Prime Minister was a man called James Callaghan, and he came back from a Commonwealth summit in the Bahamas looking sun-kissed whilst people were not being buried in England and the dustbins were not being emptied and there were strikes. You know, Britain today is a very, very different place which many people that live, work and vote in this country that are in their 20s, in their 30s or early 40s will have no recollection of and very little appreciation of what needed to change in Britain to make it what it is today.

12:38 Brian Rose: Was it socialist back then?

12:41 Derek Laud: Well, I mean, the post-war Britain, of course, was a period of great social change because it was when natural deference started to change, when people were preferred, rightly so, based on merit, not on class.

13:05 Brian Rose: Preferred as deference, is that what you said?

13:10 Derek Laud: Yes.

13:11 Brian Rose: So less royal and historical roles and more…

13:16 Derek Laud: Well, this whole notion of deference was a nation that actually just responded to being told what they will do without questioning it, conferring authority on someone based on class, not achievement.

13:39 Those are the type of things closely associated with…

13:43 Brian Rose: I get my history lessons from Downton Abbey, like most Americans.

13:48 Derek Laud: I’ve never watched it.

13:49 Brian Rose: It’s fascinating. In the last season or two, you see the people downstairs starting to question their roles and if they can do other things.

13:59 You can see the Labour government coming through, and it’s in the 30s, and there’s this underlying idea of this class-based society starting to ask questions about why.

14:11 Derek Laud: Yes.

14:11 Brian Rose: And so I can see what you’re talking about. Is it important to know our history, to know where we’re going and what’s even happening today?

14:21 Derek Laud: Well, I think that you’ve got to know something about the past in order to try and build the future and try, and inasmuch as history can make this possible, try not to repeat past mistakes.

14:35 So certainly I think a grounding in history must help almost anyone, regardless of what job you do or what your interests might be.

14:45 Brian Rose: Now, you have a conservative view. A lot of people would look back. When Margaret Thatcher died, there were people in the north that, I’ve never heard anyone celebrating the death of a British leader so much. She was hated for breaking these unions and for the trade groups and for the way that it used to be.

15:09 Whereas you’re saying those were times that weren’t good for the country, that we needed to get over those.

15:18 Derek Laud: Well, that, by the way, was probably one of the most disgraceful things I’ve ever seen. And probably most of those people that were demonstrating in the streets or celebrating the death of Margaret Thatcher never knew her, were probably not even alive when she was first elected leader of the Conservative Party and prime minister in 1979 and have based their views on prejudice and not on fact.

15:52 The one thing I would also say, and I think that this is what makes me most troubled about it, and it’s something that should concern us all, is that I suspect people will behave in exactly the same way when Tony Blair eventually dies. And this lack of deference is something that I certainly understand needed to come about, natural deference. But that doesn’t necessarily mean, in fact it doesn’t mean, I take back the word necessarily, it doesn’t mean that you should not give respect to people.

16:35 And after all, neither Tony Blair or Mrs Thatcher were dictators, they were democratically elected, democratically elected on three occasions surpassing the record of Lord Liverpool, in Mrs Thatcher’s case. It is without doubt a marvellous place to be, Britain, or anywhere else that is free and democratic and it’s wonderful that people can shout and protest and oppose. But I don’t think that you do that based on prejudice. We all know what happens when prejudices advance.

17:29 That’s what the Second World War was about.

17:34 Brian Rose: What do you remember about Margaret Thatcher?

17:39 Derek Laud: I think I probably remember most about her, the things that were not commonly associated with her, and that was just a sense of enormous kindness to others and a compassion that would never be seen by the screens of the nation. I remember this one particular story told to me by Michael Coven, for whom I worked, who had a daughter who worked for Margaret Thatcher in opposition.

18:21 So this shows you that the way in which she was behaving then was something that was just, as it were, natural, empirical. She had a terrible week. Most weeks, I think, for the leader of the opposition in politics is pretty terrible. She’d been overseas and came back and there was a crisis of some kind brewing. Mrs Thatcher wasn’t interested in the crisis.

19:01 I would remember that Amanda, her diary secretary, had gone into hospital to have a baby, and her first thought was about Amanda and the baby, and she went straight to the hospital. I think that that shows to me something that wasn’t commonly associated with her.

19:27 Brian Rose: Did you see the movie about her?

19:30 Derek Laud: I did, I did, I did.

19:32 Brian Rose: What was that like to watch and did you think there were accurate parts of that?

19:40 Derek Laud: Just before I went to go, I said to Leon Britton, who served as home secretary under Margaret Thatcher, as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry under Margaret Thatcher, and as Chief Secretary to the Treasury under Margaret Thatcher. So his entire political career was made by one woman. And I said to Leon, I’m going to go and see the film. And he said, well, what on earth would we want to go and do that? We’ve all lived through it.

20:15 And I thought to myself, that could mean that he’d had enough of her and didn’t want to revisit the Thatcher Downing Street years, or it could have meant that he thought no film could do justice to Mrs Thatcher. I will leave it in the balance as to what his intentions might have been in that remark. But I came away from having seen it, thinking what a terrible depiction of Mrs Thatcher and her period in office, how trivial it was.

21:05 Brian Rose: It’s a movie.

21:07 Derek Laud: And it is, but I think that this is where, going back to your early question about history, it has a duty, first of all, to be historically accurate.

21:24 And it was, in many cases, wanting in that respect. So, for example, to open the movie with Mrs Thatcher in a corner shop, buying milk and a newspaper, was just so far removed from reality.

21:45 Brian Rose: Right. So the dimension, the Alzheimer’s theme, you didn’t think was a great way of remembering those periods. Let me ask you, what is the son of Jamaican immigrants, a black man, doing writing speeches for the Conservative Party of Britain for people like Thatcher and John Major?

22:15 Or is that a silly question for me to ask? Is that not a strange path for someone to take?

22:22 Derek Laud: Of course, I keep asking myself.

22:25 Brian Rose: How did you get there?

22:27 Derek Laud: Years later, I think everything happens.

22:30 I mean, certainly it has for me. By accident, I’ve never applied for a job in my life. I’ve always been invited to do things. And when I was much younger, I thought that I would be a lawyer if I was clever enough, but I wasn’t because I didn’t become one. But what I did do was I went to a firm of solicitors and did some work experience, which was arranged by a teacher who was at Oxford with the partner of the firm that I went to work for.

23:12 And I really had a very good time working there. But it was through that conduit that I met a man called Ian Percival, who was a QC and a Member of Parliament, a Conservative Member of Parliament, who then became Solicitor General under Margaret Thatcher. And through Ian, I met a group of other Members of Parliament and Ministers and so on and so forth. And I always offered a job in the House of Commons, and I couldn’t believe my life.

23:52 Brian Rose: Well, they must like you.

23:54 Derek Laud: I think most people don’t, in fact. Yes, don’t like me.

23:58 Brian Rose: But the ones are the big brother people like you.

24:02 Derek Laud: Well, the big brother people certainly did. I mean, I got more votes in the big brother contest than the British cabinet got votes at the last general election.

24:15 Brian Rose: Why do they think they liked you? Did they see something they could identify with? Well, you were very real on that show. You were very open on that show. Well, I suspect when you were…

24:27 Derek Laud: I mean, I was there for nearly three months. So they had a long how do you do. And when I came out of that programme, David Cameron telephoned. I’ve known him for a very long time. And the Conservative Party chairman asked me to go in to talk to them about this because they were so surprised that I was so successful.

25:05 And they wanted to see if there was something that the Conservative Party could learn from this experience and use that experience to somehow get an upside, as we say in finance. And I told them I didn’t think it was going to be possible, not least because most of them were fickle. And secondly, it seemed to me that most people responded to anybody because of authenticity. And what most politicians lack is authenticity.

25:44 Brian Rose: So they could have learned that from you.

25:48 Derek Laud: But I can’t give them authenticity.

25:50 Brian Rose: I told someone that you were on Celebrity Big Brother and then I checked and they were like, they checked on you and they said, no, no, he was with the riff-raff. He was on Big Brother, which means these people don’t have personalities to protect or anything. You’re just in with these people who can really behave as they like with no consequences. Is it easier being on Celebrity Big Brother? Do you think it would have been easier for you?

26:13 Derek Laud: Well, one thing I didn’t suppose a good moment to answer another question that you haven’t asked first. Why did I do it? Well, I did it in 2005 because the Conservative Party just lost the third general election. And I thought to myself, what is this about? Why do they keep losing these elections?

26:48 Is it conservative thought, ideas, ideology, or might it be the people? So I thought to myself, I’ll go in, I’ll put myself into the middle of a reality TV contest, which is, if you like, like a national debating competition. 24 hours a day. 24 hours a day. And just to see how far I could go.

27:15 Brian Rose: Okay, so because of that loss, you figured it’s time to run an experiment, a social experiment.

27:20 Derek Laud: That’s right.

27:21 Brian Rose: Put yourself in the middle of it. For people that don’t know, and there are a few people out there who don’t know Celebrity Big Brother, can you explain the process? This is also pre-YouTube, so this is a time where putting yourself out there on video like that just hadn’t really been done. So how did you get this opportunity and what’s the whole setup?

27:40 Is it three or four months and someone wins, someone loses?

27:46 Derek Laud: Yes. Well, you see, I’m not an expert on Big Brother. I’ve never watched it before. I appeared on it apart from a few weeks of the Celebrity Big Brother version.

28:02 What happened was I was in the bath and I was reading The Economist, and The Economist was fascinated about the idea of grouping in a house with people of extraordinarily different backgrounds, interests, beliefs or non-beliefs, and having more or less no rules and seeing what happened. And at the end of The Economist article, a light came on in my head that this could be a way of connecting more people to ideas than to celebrity, which is one of the reasons I wouldn’t have done a Celebrity Big Brother, because I think the whole notion of calling yourself such a thing is absurd in the first place. And secondly, they are paid. We are not. There’s a big difference.

29:18 People’s motivation, when they’re being paid last checks to do things, they’re at. Do whatever is necessary.

29:26 Brian Rose: How do you put yourself under 24-hour scrutiny for three months? Is it the first few days? Are you conscious of it? And then do you just have to let it go?

29:37 Were you ever thinking, what the heck am I doing when you were in there? And how did you come to that decision to go for it?

29:47 Derek Laud: Well, it’s a long process getting into the house, and the auditions seem to be never-ending. In my case, I just simply said I wasn’t going to go do any more auditions. I did two or three or something like that.

30:04 And then they telephoned and said, would I go back to it? I said, I’m not going to any more. So I said, it’d be easier to become Queen of England than to get into this Big Brother house. I said, I’m not interested in doing any more auditions.

30:16 Brian Rose: And you had a profile on the Conservative Party, so they thought, there’s value here, he’s unique.

30:21 Derek Laud: Well, I don’t know what they thought, but if you read the book that came out after that, it says that from the moment that they met me, they’d made their decision. So going through all the rigmarole of auditions needn’t have applied to me, but I suppose the thing about rules is that they apply to everyone.

30:46 Brian Rose: And what was it like being in there?

30:48 Derek Laud: It was extremely tough. I think it’s probably the toughest thing I’ve ever done in my life, because you’re in there with people, in my case, great deal younger, and with very different interests.

31:04 It’s a shocking admission, but I had not heard of Beyonce until I went into the Big Brother house. But I knew about her when I arrived there. It’s shocking, but I’d never heard of Davina McCall before I went into the Big Brother house. But I heard about her there. And one of the things that was really striking to me was to learn about the things that they thought to be important.

31:34 And I didn’t say to them that these things were not important, but they certainly weren’t important to me. And they’re certainly not the values that I wouldn’t calculate amongst any others that I know. But then you see, I think the most wonderful thing about being young is that you should be exactly that. And it’s a wonderful thing to witness. But the distance in age was quite significant, I think.

32:12 I would have been at least 15 years older than most of them.

32:16 Brian Rose: Okay. And you almost won it.

32:19 Derek Laud: Although, of course, I looked younger than all of them.

32:23 Brian Rose: You almost won it, won it. You obviously wanted to win it.

32:27 How was that feeling at the end? How did you feel when that happened? The interview afterwards and the weeks afterwards?

32:39 Derek Laud: Well, I mean, there are two ways of looking at it. The first is that I won it because I showed that by being authentic and that time, and I think it’s still very much the case today, that the Conservative Party still has not won a general election since 1997.

33:05 Brian Rose: Okay. Outright won.

33:07 Derek Laud: Yeah. I mean, 24% share of the vote is what they got at the last election. That’s not a victory.

33:16 They were put in to government in 2010 by an arrangement with the Liberal Party. That isn’t a victory. I think that there is something very significant going on in Britain today which nobody is addressing properly. And that is that, roughly speaking, I think we are becoming less of a Conservative nation than we were, let’s say, 30 years ago, 40 years ago, 50 years ago. But that doesn’t mean to say that the values of Conservatism does not exist.

34:05 It means, however, that the people that are practising it, the vast majority of people still do not like. So what has gained change in my lifetime or in my active, over 30 years, active participation in British politics is that the Conservative Party, when I became a member, was led by a Prime Minister that was authentically meritocratic. Thatcher. Mrs Thatcher. That’s right.

34:47 The Conservative Party is now dominated by privilege. So we’ve gone backwards. And I wonder whether that’s a problem for most people. So this is the point that I’m making. So it’s not that people are less conservative, I don’t think, today, in a way of thinking, but I think that they relate less and less to the people that are running the Conservative Party.

35:21 Brian Rose: Do you think Cameron could use a dose of authenticity or reality? Do you think if he spent three months on a Big Brother show, he might see what you saw, which is the people want to see someone that’s real, as we say here on this show?

35:37 Derek Laud: Well, he’s a very good man. He’s a very nice man. I have my differences with him.

35:43 I only told him that yesterday in a text message. My differences are real. I find myself feeling more distant than I ever have from the Conservative Party.

35:59 Brian Rose: What is that?

36:01 Derek Laud: I’ve become, over the years, and I think I probably always have been a proper liberal.

36:10 I’m terribly worried about the idea of scrapping the Human Rights Act. I’m terribly disturbed by giving more powers to the security services. I’m very worried about the way in which the police behave in this country without any accountability. I’m troubled that it doesn’t seem to matter that this notion of liberty, which you would think is the preeminent job of a Member of Parliament to protect, it doesn’t seem to me to be at the heart, at the root of its purpose, of its function.

37:02 I cannot really, in all seriousness, support the diminution of liberty. I think that some of these things are happening under the Conservative Party.

37:20 Brian Rose: When are you going to run for office?

37:24 Derek Laud: Oh, I wouldn’t waste my time. Certainly, if I did, I wouldn’t stand any longer for the Conservative Party.

37:37 I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing that. The thing that struck me most about the coalition, and it should have occurred to more people than it seems to have done, is that the Liberal Party were actually able to govern in a non-conflicted way. So, why were they able to so quickly change their policy, for example, on tuition fees? It was because they were non-conflicted. Why was it very difficult for the Conservative Party to properly say to the banks that you have to, and you have to now, separate your retail operation from the rest of it?

38:44 It was because they’re conflicted, because they’re too much in the pocket of big business. And I thought that was such a refreshing thing, that the papers which are so sleepy in Britain today, which is why nobody bothers reading them, this is the sort of thing that they should be writing about, not how many pints of beer William Haig might or might not have had.

39:17 Brian Rose: Let me ask you about the press. People will watch this for many months to come, but right now it’s the pig gate, and it’s the publisher of your book.

39:30 Someone published something that may or may not have happened to Cameron when he was a student at Oxford, and now people are talking about it. He’s not denying it. The press is talking about something that obviously doesn’t have a lot to do with some of the freedoms you’re talking about. When you see something like that, and you’ve been behind the scenes and written the speeches, what’s your reaction?

39:54 Derek Laud: Well, I think probably quite a lot of people in this country today wish they were the pig.

39:59 Brian Rose: What does that mean?

40:01 Derek Laud: I mean, he’s not an unattractive man, is he, Mr Cameron? I like Kevin Cameron. But this is something that really Cameron himself should use to reinforce authenticity. And the way in which, of course, you do that is to say that everybody’s entitled to a past, and I’m no different.

40:32 But that doesn’t mean that I have to sing about that past. That is a broken record. I’m no longer listening to vinyl records. This is the perfect prestige. I am an iPod man.

40:52 We all go through change, and I think that it’s a great thing, whether or not the stories are true is irrelevant, but I think it’s a wonderful thing that people have had, a past, and made mistakes, and so on and so forth. It would have been so nice, I think, had one felt that Tony Blair had made mistakes before he became a member of Parliament, before he became Prime Minister, instead of making them, whilst he is Prime Minister. So I think I would prefer things that way around.

41:33 So they could have addressed it differently, as opposed to, no comment, we’re not going to justify this book, there could be something as in, things happen in the past, we all have pasts, let’s move on. I think that their response, there was almost no other response to the, that we’re not going to dignify this book by giving comments on it, was obviously a very good response, because nobody is talking about it today, on the news today, radio or television that’s not been mentioned. I looked at the Guardian, there’s a small bit bit on it in the papers, Cameron’s approach to this has worked.

42:22 And also, the thing that’s really, really pretty pathetic about the book, and they did come to me to ask me to be interviewed for it, is that all of its hearsay, they’re not identifying anybody that saw these things, prepared to say that they saw these things, and got photographic evidence of it, or anything else. It’s just all regurgitated vomit. And speaking for myself, I don’t like to eat my own vomit.

42:56 Brian Rose: Right, well said. I just want to finish up with Big Brother, and then I want to talk about your book.

43:05 What was it like to do that for three months? Would have winning, would have changed your life, would have made you feel better about the whole experience? Are you a competitive person?

43:16 Derek Laud: Very competitive. I play tennis. I live and breathe it every day.

43:20 There’s not a moment that I don’t go over in my head when I fail to win a match, and why perhaps I fail to win it, or at a point that I played well, and why did I play it well? And I don’t know that I would necessarily have won it. You see, when you’re in the house, you have no idea what’s going on outside of it.

43:47 Brian Rose: Right, so you don’t know how to edit it, or who’s in it.

43:52 Derek Laud: No, so I couldn’t have felt any disappointment, because I didn’t know I was advancing.

43:59 I did not know that somebody paid for a helicopter to go around the Big Brother house, which is why we were constantly called inside the house, and the shutters closed, with a banner saying, Derek Lord for Prime Minister. So I had no way of knowing. I think had I known that, I think the disappointment would have been real, but I certainly would have felt more comfortable in any event with Eugene winning, because he was a much better person than anybody else in the house, and certainly a much better person than me.

44:50 Brian Rose: If you had won, would it have changed your life differently?

44:53 Derek Laud: Oh, how could it have done?

44:55 Brian Rose: And when you got out of there, how did it change your life, being in that experience?

45:00 Derek Laud: Well, what I realized was that I didn’t want recognition, and I didn’t want all the intrusion, and I didn’t want photographers outside of my house, and I didn’t want to be snapped cycling on my bike.

45:11 Brian Rose: Which happened for a year after?

45:13 Derek Laud: Yes, and I didn’t want people to know who I’d kissed or not kissed. So it seemed to me to be a bit unreal, rather like being in Capri, where I’ve just come from today. And I’m grateful for the experience, because I’m absolutely sure in my mind that the way I want to contribute and be remembered is not through appearing on programs, but perhaps the things that I’ve written and the interviews I’ve given and my ideas and me with all my faults. Those are the things that matter.

46:16 Brian Rose: It’s fascinating to hear you say that, because a lot of people want to be famous. A lot of people want to be recognized. But some people realize that if you get to be famous or recognized for the wrong reason, it can be mentally taxing for you. And I think this happens with actors sometimes, as they’ll get stopped on the street, and some will be like, oh yeah, you were in that movie. And the actor’s thinking to himself, you know what, I was in that movie for a minute.

46:38 It was written by someone else, directed by someone else. I’m not the character, and yet they’re celebrated for that as opposed to, say, a book they wrote or something they did, where people come up to them and say, that point of view changed my life. I think there’s so many different kinds of celebrity, and until you get a little recognition, it’s hard to know there’s a big difference, between something like that. Your book is called The Problem with Immigrants, which I love that title because it makes me want to know more.

47:06 And this is honestly a great time to have you on, because again, back to the media, it’s been of late the flavor of the week to talk about immigrants. And it’s actually been funny for me to watch this media cycle, because it’s been kind of up and down, and I don’t know if we’re going to be talking about the same immigration issues as far as Syria in the next three months. I’m an immigrant in this country. Your parents were immigrants. Neither of us look or sound British, per se, you sound British.

47:36 And I think there’s something beautiful about what I call the immigrant mind. I think when you come to a country you don’t belong at, you have no plan B. You’re willing to do things you wouldn’t normally do. You’re willing to take jobs you wouldn’t do to make things happen. And I actually love being an immigrant in this country.

47:53 It can be very empowering. But at the same time, we see recently what’s happening, where hundreds of thousands of people are coming from Syria. They’re trying to go to Germany via Hungary. They’re trying to come here. London’s one of the biggest melting pots in the world, I think, as far as a city, and where it’s okay to not be British in this city.

48:13 Whereas I find New York City, the cab driver from Nigeria is American. And here the cab driver from Nigeria is Nigerian, and I find that very refreshing about this city. But can you tell me what your immigrant experience is like, or of your parents, and why write the book?

48:40 Derek Laud: Well, like most people concerned with social science, and I think that is my primary interest, you look around, and you see, and you hear, and you take stock, and you respond, or not as the case may be.

49:00 To movement, and change, and so on. And before Europe was engulfed in what is a refugee crisis, the precursor to that was, as they saw it, or most people saw it, and certainly the British media did, a migration crisis. Refugees and migrants are two different things, and it was extraordinary that there seemed to be some confusion in Europe amongst heads of government as to what the difference was, because they were talking about migrants, when really the issue was one that related to refugees.

50:11 They’ve now got the narrative right, and there’s been in international law a long-established definition about what a refugee is, and it’s one of many different things, but typically it’s somebody that’s fleeing persecution, religious, sexual, and so on. It could be somebody fleeing a war zone. The things that make us who we are, how we respond to people in need, and the refugee crisis in reality is a very, very tiny issue being magnified by hysteria in the media and television screens.

51:11 Many millions of people migrated, and many were refugees during and after the Second World War.

51:22 Brian Rose: In this country?

51:24 Derek Laud: Yes, all over the world. Why is it that there are more people in the United States of America called McDonald’s than there are in Scotland? It is because they migrated.

51:43 Why is it that not enough people know that in 1752 there were 2,000 Africans in London alone? Why is it that people do not know that Catherine of Aragon was served loyally for 27 years by a black lady as Lady of the Bedchamber? Why is it that people do not know that Queen Elizabeth I was so concerned about the number of immigrants in Britain that she sent a telegram to the Lord Mayor of London about it? Why is it that not enough people know about Britain’s migration story?

52:43 And that is one of the reasons why I decided to write the book, because people talk about immigration and migration as though it’s a new thing. For goodness sake, where did we, the British, get the idea of empire from? We stole it from the Romans. We have much to be grateful to the Romans for. They were here and they left us with roads.

53:15 They connected bridges that led somewhere, art, wine, food. The whole thing about the migration story, it seems to me, is that everybody must surely now know or they damn well ought to know that everybody is an immigrant. Everybody is. It’s just a question of how far back in time you go. Not everybody was as wise or as clever to anglicise their name as the Windsor’s did when they came here.

54:05 Brian Rose: Which is the royal family, if you’re…

54:09 Derek Laud: Yes.

54:10 Brian Rose: How many different nations are in the royal family?

54:15 Derek Laud: Exactly. Well, I mean, I can count on the finger of one hand at least five, German, French, Austrian, Dutch, British.

54:27 So this thing that we fear is something that I’m saying in my book that we should be celebrating. But you can only properly celebrate it if you have a better understanding of the type of contribution it has made to Britain, the country that it is today. The United States of America wouldn’t exist as a country today without migration.

55:02 Brian Rose: It’s fascinating in America because the economy wouldn’t exist without illegal Mexican immigrants. And yet the parting line of the leaders in Washington DC has to be, we don’t want them.

55:21 But if they left, the economy would just die. And so it’s almost this kind of open secret, the Pulcinella, where we also need them for the growth, and yet we have to say, let’s close our borders. And this is a country that was quite literally built on immigration.

55:39 Derek Laud: That’s right. And I think this is an important point, which you’ve just put your finger on, and this is something that concerns me hugely.

55:48 The reason why we can’t have a proper grown-up adult-like discussion about the subject is because of the politicians. The politicians dare not speak the truth, and the politicians are very good at dog-whistle politics. So in effect, what you have are people who are always conscious of the voting public pandering to prejudices instead of doing what I think is their duty, is educated people, largely, most of them are educated people, to inform and to persuade, and for people to see that, yes, of course sometimes migration is chaotic.

56:51 Of course sometimes it brings problems, but it does, especially if you look for it. Of course there has to be controls. Everybody knows those things, but what you can’t do, and this is one of the things that led me to write the book, is this did happen in this country under a Conservative Prime Minister in coalition with the Liberals. They locked out of the discussion their Liberal partners, and didn’t know that they were planning to do this. They devised billboards ads around the country, and vans with posters on them saying, if you’re an illegal immigrant, go home, or face arrest.

57:54 And again, that took me back in time because the racist party in Britain then were called the National Front, and their slogan was go home. So to deliberately use the ghost of racist language in an ad like that was deliberate. It was a way of trying to show that really we’re on your side, the racist side. And I think that that was utterly deplorable, and I told David Cameron that too.

58:31 Brian Rose: What do you think about the rise in the BNP or the rise in some of these groups in Europe that are anti-immigration, and the way they kind of pander to this kind of scare tactic when economies drop and people are worried about that?

58:53 What does that make you feel like when you see that happening?

59:00 Derek Laud: Well, of course, it’s always existed, but one of the things that I think has also existed is that people are extremely good at blaming other people for their own problems. And this is what is invariably happening, I think, and we must be very careful about this. It is quite clear, of course, not just in respect of issues to do with immigration. It is quite clear that when economies are underperforming, that people become more militant, more strident in what they say and how they behave.

59:57 When the economy is growing, people are sharing the proceeds of growth. And we need the labour. But what that really implies to me is that really beneath the surface, people’s prejudices are still there, and it doesn’t take a lot for it to come to the top.

1:00:23 Brian Rose: If you were prime minister right now, how would you deal with the Syrian refugees? You’re right, I’m calling them the refugees.

1:00:36 Refugees, you’re right, I’m calling them the wrong things. Crisis. And the fact that maybe Britain might have to take 50,000 in a year, probably those numbers are high, but what would you do?

1:00:49 Derek Laud: Well, the numbers, of course, that we’re talking about are so small. I mean, this is a huge country, and it’s not just Britain alone that has to share the burden of taking people from a country.

1:01:03 We played a part in creating an even bigger problem.

1:01:09 Brian Rose: How do we play that part?

1:01:12 Derek Laud: Well, I’m very suspicious about the way in which the United States of America and Britain was compliant as well. In speaking of rhetoric that disenfranchised people…

1:01:30 Brian Rose: So funding the civil war, either with rhetoric or some other way?

1:01:37 Derek Laud: Correct, or some other way. And I think this did lead to very significant problems. But to answer the question very directly, I mean, I just don’t think that you could suddenly say or behave in such a way as to imply that this is nothing to do with ours. It is, as I said earlier, what makes us human. It’s how you respond to people when they are in greatest need.

1:02:08 And I think that we can absorb these numbers. And one of the things that’s very striking to me about the refugees from around the world that we’re talking about today and people are very concerned about is just how… And this is quite different from what’s happened in the past. How many more of them are part of an educated community who can be a force for a great good and can properly contribute to the countries where they take refuge?

1:02:53 Brian Rose: Okay, so we should welcome them in.

1:02:57 Derek Laud: Yes, I believe that.

1:02:58 Brian Rose: Okay, and as refugees, it’s important to do that sooner than if they were just migrants from other countries that weren’t coming from war zones.

1:03:06 Derek Laud: That’s right, and I think that you need to apply, as international law already suggests, the law very differently.

1:03:12 Brian Rose: Right, I try not to watch the news, it always frustrates me, when I’m going to the gym, I usually get a little bit like in the changing rooms, and I remember the picture of the boy on the beach and the reaction to that, then Germany opening their doors to everyone, then Germany starting to close their doors, and then the other countries starting to close the doors, and then now it becoming…

1:03:34 And I’m just guessing in another few weeks, we might not be talking about the word Syria. That must be frustrating to kind of see that reaction as in…

1:03:47 Derek Laud: Well, one of the things that I thought was very interesting about this was people going around and saying, you know, we must close borders, we must put up the drawbridge, and that was the narrative.

1:04:04 And it never has felt like it to me, even though we’re a member of this thing called the European Union, that they were not borders, and that we are not free to travel unimpeded. There are controls everywhere you go, whether I want to go into France or whether I want to go into Germany or whether I want to go to Italy. I’ve just come back from that. The Czechs are very thorough, there are always delays coming into Heathrow Airport. It’s outrageous, the delays getting into my own country.

1:04:52 So the idea that they’re… This idea that they’re trying to perpetuate, that there are no border controls, and suddenly we have to enforce border controls is a complete lie. And to make it appear that the people to blame for even more controls, more regulations, are the migrants or the refugees. This is not the case.

1:05:23 Brian Rose: Yeah, the whole concept of the European Union is fascinating.

1:05:29 It really is just an idea that’s held together by adoption, and it can really disappear very quickly, as we’re seeing. I didn’t know they could even enforce physical borders between, say, Hungary and Germany, but apparently they can. Like you said, we’re all part of a free-trading zone, and yet you get checked with your passport going between countries, which is strange. We have a different currency than Europe. And the stamps.

1:05:54 Derek Laud: Every time I check in and I check out, I have to wait before they’re prepared to let me into the country of my birth until the computer says yes, presumably.

1:06:06 Brian Rose: I have to ask you about something about you, which is fascinating, and this is the fox hunting. Master of the foxhounds, the first black one in the UK. How did this happen? I don’t know enough about fox hunting.

1:06:21 Is this a rare thing to happen in this country?

1:06:24 Derek Laud: Perhaps it was because I didn’t know enough about fox hunting either. They made me master. But, I mean, it’s… Riding has always been there from a very young age.

1:06:36 We had a place in the country. And I always enjoyed rural life. And I particularly was more interested in horses than football or some such thing. And the logical extension of riding for many, particularly in Britain, you know, 30, 40 years ago, was hunting. And it’s a great social thing.

1:07:11 Brian Rose: Can you explain to an American and any that are listening now the whole idea of a fox hunt and the social component, the practical component, and how actually one actually works the day of?

1:07:27 Derek Laud: Well, a lot goes into the day of riding to hounds. That’s what we call it. We like to call it riding to hounds rather than fox hunting. And it is quite hierarchical.

1:07:41 So, there is a master. That was me when I served. And then you have a huntsman. And it’s his job to actually make the hounds work. And then you have people that are called whippers in.

1:08:08 And literally, they’re cracking, and this is where the term comes from, the whip to make sure the hounds, we don’t call them dogs, we call them hounds, are all moving in the same direction on what we call the brush, the tail, or the fox. And it’s hunting by scent, not by sight, remember. So, they’ve got their nose to the ground, and they’re hunting the scent that the fox gives off when it’s being chased. And you have subscribers, and they pay what is called a cap, because traditionally the money was taken literally around in a cap.

1:09:04 To come out and hunt with you. And it’s the job of the master to be responsible for the day and what happens during the day. And he makes arrangements with local landowners so that we can go over their land and make sure the order is always kept in the field.

1:09:30 Brian Rose: How many horses are we talking here?

1:09:34 Derek Laud: Well, it varies from hunt to hunt, but when I was master, a typical day would be about 60 or 70 people following.

1:09:45 Brian Rose: 60 or 70, how many hounds?

1:09:48 Derek Laud: Well, that varies, but to me normally you would have a pack of about 30.

1:09:55 Brian Rose: That’s a big group, and you get riding pretty fast. It’s off-piste territory, dangerous.

1:10:05 Derek Laud: You have to be fearless, and you should usually come with a grave skill.

1:10:12 You just don’t know what you’re going to come across. We don’t know what’s under the hoof of a horse. You have to be vigilant the whole time. You have to take jumps. You have to take hedgerows.

1:10:35 You have to take banks. There’s rushing water. There’s a bank here and a bank there, and you’ve got to get across. How do you get across? You’re often doing it at great speed.

1:10:51 Brian Rose: You can’t graduate to this very easily. You have to really… You’re following the hounds, which are on the scent. You’re kind of following where they go, cracking the whip to make sure they stay in line and stay together, and then trying to ultimately kill the fox.

1:11:11 Derek Laud: Yes, that’s right.

1:11:12 There’s always a live fox. There’s always one that we have to get, and he always has a bad day. You may have a day when you don’t get a fox. That’s, again, the job of the master, to make sure that when you’re having days like that, and there are plenty of them, that the followers still get a fantastic day’s writing. You will be fast moving.

1:11:39 You’ll take jumps. You’ll give them the pleasure that they’re looking for. Nobody comes to see the kill. Very, very, very few people that have hunted for a long time will ever have seen a kill. The kill and the hound usually does the kill.

1:11:57 Brian Rose: Yes. But the hounds can’t do it on their own because you need to crack the whip and bring them in the right direction.

1:12:05 Derek Laud: No, they will naturally go onto the back of a fox’s neck and with one bite it’s dead.

1:12:10 Brian Rose: Okay. But why are the horses and the people there then?

1:12:14 Do they need guidance?

1:12:17 Derek Laud: Well, they’re there for the social interaction that happens in the field. They’re there because they love their horses and they love riding and they love the countryside. And they like the challenges that the day presents. It’s the unknown.

1:12:43 It’s an adrenaline rush. I’d rather people are doing that than taking cocaine.

1:12:51 Brian Rose: And it’s still legal in this country.

1:12:55 Derek Laud: Well, there are rules about it that have to be applied but people do still go hunting in this country despite the attempts of the last Labour government to make it impossible.

1:13:14 Brian Rose: I never understood why people had such a problem with fox hunting.

1:13:21 I’ve seen those foxes running around where I am in North London and they just look like bad little bastards. They’ve got to go. They’re not good neighbours, let’s put it like that. I was always surprised everybody was trying to protect these little guys. They were off killing hens and things.

1:13:39 Derek Laud: Well, I think that for me, I think that’s an emotional reaction because the animal looks nice. And most people that live in the countryside understand the reason for and are grateful that there are local hunts that keep the fox population under control.

1:14:02 Brian Rose: I heard you could hire fox snipers in this country and someone will come up and set up in your living room and then pop them with a shot and then take the fox and off they go.

1:14:18 Derek Laud: Well, I don’t know anything about that but there certainly are local authorities that now have the problem of managing the fox population because it’s a very considerable problem now in London and different local authorities take different views about it.

1:14:41 Some think, oh well, it’s nothing that we want to do anything about and others think that it is vermin and they can spread disease and they can be dangerous.

1:14:53 Brian Rose: Right. Can I ask you a personal question? You’ve been open about being gay since a very young age, at least you were with your family and I was wondering if that was ever a tricky thing to balance in any kind of work that you were doing, let alone being in the Conservative Party. I guess I have all these preconceived notions about that or whether you felt it hinder you or help you or not a factor.

1:15:25 Derek Laud: Well, it was never an issue for me as much as it was for other people. I mean, when I was growing up I didn’t know what caused heterosexuality so I was… Everybody else was weird. All the through that everybody else was very strange, you know. And it never occurred to me that I had a right not to say what I was and I think that’s probably been a problem for most people if they think about me is that I’ve always assumed it’s my right to do as I please and I don’t go around breaking the law, I don’t go around robbing old ladies, I don’t go around deliberately causing harm or hurt to anybody else.

1:16:22 I just want to live in a free society that celebrates differentiation whether it’s sexual, religious, racial. You know, I’m not wanting to be judgmental and I think that society is a better place and I do have societal values when people live in a spirit of acceptance and I have no regrets ever about never once denying my homosexuality unlike many other people and I have undoubtedly suffered considerably from it particularly being a member of the Conservative Party and people have very short memories. They think that today that it could never have been an issue in the past because it’s less of an issue now but again this is why people must know something of the past because it was an issue.

1:17:45 Because it was a very, very big issue, a huge, huge issue and you know to this very day how significant it still is for most people to be honest with others about their sexuality because just think of it in these terms there is not one out tennis player.

1:18:14 Brian Rose: Well, Martina Navratilova.

1:18:17 Derek Laud: Well, she’s not a tennis player anymore and I think she came out after she retired.

1:18:27 Brian Rose: That might be true.

1:18:29 Derek Laud: But if you just think about it in these terms, why is that so?

1:18:36 Brian Rose: Right, football or…

1:18:37 Derek Laud: Exactly, rugby player.

1:18:38 Brian Rose: I was about to ask a member of Parliament?

1:18:41 Derek Laud: Yeah, there are now quite a few of those.

1:18:43 Brian Rose: But not Prime Minister for a long time.

1:18:45 Derek Laud: You get adopted now just because you’re gay regardless of what your views are.

1:18:49 Brian Rose: Right, okay. But it hindered career advancement for you in the past.

1:18:53 Derek Laud: Oh, yes, people used it to a huge… In the Conservative Party, you used it against me.

1:18:57 Brian Rose: Right.

1:18:58 Derek Laud: The prejudices were real and many people probably still active and influential to some degree in British politics would still use it if they can.

1:19:15 Brian Rose: And we won’t have an openly gay Prime Minister for 50 years probably or you never know.

1:19:25 Derek Laud: Oh, I don’t think that’s true. I think that is entirely possible.

1:19:33 But I think it would be made easier if we had disestablishment from the Church of England.

1:19:38 Brian Rose: Okay, that’s a good point. I always ask everyone that comes here a few kind of secrets of how they’ve been successful over the years and you’ve done so many things with your life. You know, your CV is varied I haven’t even got into the… You know, you’ve done work with wealth management and partnered with some of these firms.

1:19:54 Now you’re off to Oxford this week where you’re doing some studying there. Is that right?

1:19:59 Derek Laud: Correct. I wouldn’t say restless is the word, but you do a lot of things. You know, books don’t write themselves.

1:20:05 Brian Rose: These success secrets are only available on the London Real Academy. Become a member and get access to live shows, exclusive courses, my webinars, bonus content, meetups, live events, an amazing community and much, much more. Now back to the rest of the show. What do you… When you think of Tony Blair, what do you think of as far as what he did to be successful?

1:20:39 Derek Laud: Well, I think that he worked very hard in opposition to create a brand that people could have trust in sufficiently to vote for it. That’s the most difficult thing to do.

1:20:56 Brian Rose: New labour, it was called, wasn’t it? It was a new brand, wasn’t it?

1:21:02 Derek Laud: Exactly.

1:21:03 It was a completely new brand. And it was ingenuity, it was tenacity, it was persuasion. I mean, the greatest… I mean, I think that one of his greatest achievements I would say this, wouldn’t I, was ushering in a new era of toleration. He, you remember, was the first Prime Minister that said, I’m going to appoint openly gay people to government.

1:21:41 It was unheard of before. It was only in 1997. You could not be gay or openly gay and expect to get a job in government under the Conservative Party. How horrendous is that today to think such a thing?

1:22:00 Brian Rose: So recently.

1:22:01 How do you feel about people that vilify Tony Blair today? George Galloway, who’s been a guest here a couple of years ago, he’s making a movie called The Killing of Tony Blair and is always taking shots at Tony and I think that movie is a reference to the financial killing that he made afterwards. Some people try to arrest Tony when he goes out to dinner. How do you feel about all that?

1:22:27 Derek Laud: Well, I first of all have…

1:22:29 I have a lot in common with George Galloway. I mean, he’s an ex, big brother.

1:22:34 Brian Rose: Yeah, of course. He went the celebrity way. Easy, right?

1:22:38 Derek Laud: Yes, he tried to do it after me, meet fairly soon after me. And his highlight reel isn’t…

1:22:45 Brian Rose: It’s better than yours.

1:22:46 Derek Laud: I think that’s right. And I like him because he is authentic and I like him because he says what he believes and I like him because he upsets people and goes too far.

1:22:58 Brian Rose: He came in here two years ago and charmed the pants off of me.

1:23:01 Derek Laud: Yes.

1:23:02 Brian Rose: People don’t realize it. It’s great. Charming George Galloway.

1:23:05 Derek Laud: It’s great. I like him very much.

1:23:06 Brian Rose: Yeah. I mean, you know, it’s funny when you’re… I watched…

1:23:09 There must be 15,000 videos of him on YouTube and I watched so many of them preparing for the interview. And usually he starts off by attacking the BBC or the Rupert Murdoch-owned media in the beginning of his interviews.

1:23:20 Derek Laud: With justification.

1:23:21 Brian Rose: With justification. And so I figured, oh, let’s get ready for George.

1:23:25 But, you know, he’s kissed the Blarney Stone a few times and he said to me, he said, Brian, he said, you know what they say, politics is show business for ugly people. And then he said, but what would I know about that?

1:23:41 Derek Laud: Yes, that’s an answer.

1:23:43 Brian Rose: You were telling me more about George.

1:23:46 Derek Laud: Yes.

1:23:46 Well, you know, I mean, people have very, very strong views about what happened in Iraq. And I think that there has always been, in the left of British politics, a very significant antipathy towards the United States of America. So a policy that was homegrown there made its way across the water, adopted by a Labour Prime Minister in cahoots with the Republican president. I can understand why people feel, because of the history of the Labour Party, that that was something that they could never forgive.

1:24:45 I mean, I personally think that if you’re prime minister and you’re sitting in your study at No. 10 Downing Street and you are getting intelligence that suggests that there is a growing threat in Iraq, and then weeks later, 9-11 happens, what other response could there have been after 9-11? Which is perhaps the best justification for what happened rather than this whole business of weapons of mass destruction that were not later found. So I think that Tony Blair did things that improved the life of most people in Britain.

1:26:04 And I already indicated that I think his greatest achievement was ushering toleration. I just don’t think that can be said enough. And this whole thing about Iraq, I don’t think should dwarf his overall achievements.

1:26:26 Brian Rose: It’s not easy being prime minister, is it?

1:26:31 Derek Laud: I don’t know why anybody would want to be.

1:26:35 Brian Rose: Exactly. It’s fascinating for me to see, like you said, it was a Labor Party prime minister who was allied with a Republican president. It’s kind of fascinating for me to see when people blame certain prime ministers for British behavior based on American behavior. But you always have to remember that geopolitically, Britain is an island. And when Europe is united, Britain takes it.

1:27:01 It gets crushed. And its natural ally is the US. It’s hard not to act with the US on major political and global issues. It’s really hard not to. And so when you look at some of the decisions he made, I think it’s always hard to remember that fact that you’ve got a big powerhouse that is always there to back you when Europe is maybe on the attack.

1:27:23 And sometimes you can’t always do what you want to do.

1:27:28 Derek Laud: Well, I think that’s right. But I also think that, you know, this all must be remembered in the context of great British suspicion towards the United States of America for not having a consistent human rights record. How can you still, in turn, people without trial? I mean, that’s not possible here.

1:27:53 It’s not possible in any other part of Europe or European Union. It seems to me that for most people, again, on the left, in British politics, especially the left, it’s certainly a problem for me wherever I stand politically. I don’t know myself the answer to that. It’s certainly a problem for me, the record of the United States in respect of human rights. I’m troubled that women spend more on cosmetics in the United States than it would actually take to get the world’s poor out of poverty.

1:28:38 I’m troubled that 10 million people live on less than a dollar a day. There are just too many things, I think, wrong, broken in that country, that, for me, would make any administration… Well, perhaps the best way of putting it is that I could not be a Republican if I lived in the United States of America.

1:29:08 Brian Rose: Okay. Yeah, a lot of people don’t realize the United States has all sorts of issues.

1:29:16 And when you talked about human rights issues, I thought you were going to start referring to its own citizens, so those are other issues as well. What do you think of Boris Johnson?

1:29:35 Derek Laud: Well, I first met him at Oxford when he was maybe President of the Union. I can’t remember exactly. Michael Gove was there, too, and I’ve seen him…

1:29:50 I’ve seen his journey really since that time. I mean, the one thing that is clear about Boris to me is that he is his own man, so I salute him for that. The other thing that is a fact is that he only twice just won in London for all the recognition factor, for all the clowning around, for all the contrived, disheveledness that people laugh at and so on and so forth. He only just won, and that to me is quite revealing, twice. But the thing about Boris is that, like it or not, I mean, in the end, politics is a serious business that requires serious answers, and I think the biggest defect in him is that you never know when he’s being serious.

1:31:16 And that’s a defect. It’s also one of his major selling points.

1:31:21 Brian Rose: Well, he thinks so. He has a persona that he turns on that’s fascinating to watch because it’s so different than, say, Tony Blair persona, but it seems to be working for him in some way. Who are you going to vote for from the Mayor of London?

1:31:40 George Galloway?

1:31:41 Derek Laud: I didn’t know who the candidates are yet. Who are they? I don’t know.

1:31:47 Brian Rose: You’re not running.

1:31:49 Derek Laud: I’m not.

1:31:50 Brian Rose: And finally, Jeremy Corbyn’s been in the news a lot lately. Just, in general, your thoughts on him, future of Labour.

1:32:01 Derek Laud: Well, I remember him, of course, as a backbench member of Parliament. When I was there, I always thought him to be principled, never agreed with him.

1:32:15 I didn’t think about anything. Apart from perhaps the Royal Family or the monarchy, I think that it’s an extraordinary thing that’s happened. But I think it’s a repudiation, you see, of sameness in British politics that we’ve had for too long. If you think about it, you’ve had Cameron and Clegg and Osborne and Blair, and they’re all pretty much a carbon copy of one another. And I think that what’s happened in the Labour Party and the wider public that became members of the Labour Party was a kind of rejection of that sameness.

1:33:14 I think that’s what we’re seeing. He is so different.

1:33:18 Brian Rose: Fascinating to watch. I think it’ll end in disaster. Okay.

1:33:23 Derek Laud: Might not, but it very well might. I think it’s more likely to end in disaster. Well, I think that in the end, you see, this is a big difference. This is why it’s all going to be very interesting and why it will end in disaster. It’s because he didn’t go into politics because he wanted to be leader of the Labour Party or because he wanted to be Prime Minister.

1:33:54 He went to politics because he had very strong ideas and convictions. Mr Miliband might have gone into politics because he wanted to be Prime Minister. Certainly almost invariably implies to Cameron and others. So what happens is that those people that actually go into politics because they want to be someone or they want to hold a particular type of office always invariably end up doing the wrong thing by the country because of their ambition. Whereas I think the reverse will be the case for Jeremy Corbyn.

1:34:37 He will do the right thing by the Labour country because he doesn’t actually have any ambition.

1:34:42 Brian Rose: Right, and ruin his career in the process.

1:34:45 Derek Laud: And ruin his career in the process.

1:34:47 Brian Rose: He directly snubs the media. Can you survive in this day and age by doing that?

1:34:51 Derek Laud: Well, I mean, I think that it depends on what you are regarding as the media is now such a big tool. I mean, when I was young, the media meant the newspapers. And I think that he has every right to do that because I think their absolutely disgraceful treatment of Jeremy Corbyn is in a democratic country, one of the most shameful things that I’ve ever seen. And I feel enormous discomfort by the way in which press barons and certain editors behave as though they speak from Britain.

1:35:42 When they’ve never stood for office, when nobody knows who they are, nobody knows where they live, nobody knows what they do, and so on, that we need greater press regulation and it’s no good, this whole notion of self-regulation. And I just don’t think that anybody has the right to go around trashing people.

1:36:05 Brian Rose: And so they still have power in these papers, even though there’s a whole new media component. You still think they…

1:36:14 Derek Laud: Oh, yes, undoubtedly they do.

1:36:16 And they should be regulated. Of course they do, yeah. I mean, you don’t think of not regulating properly the nuclear industry. They’ve got the means to blow us all up, although it’s the daftest thing imaginable to be rushing over to China and giving half of Britain’s nuclear industry to the Chinese. The Lord knows what’s going to happen with that.

1:36:45 So why on earth do you think it’s not acceptable to think that you shouldn’t regulate the newspapers that has considerable power to inform or to misinform? Just think, for example, if the newspapers were controlled by Nazis today and we believed in this thing called self-regulation. Would anybody think that that was right?

1:37:11 Brian Rose: Well, there’s a lot of papers these days, so…

1:37:14 Derek Laud: Which papers is there?

1:37:16 Brian Rose: There’s online papers.

1:37:18 Derek Laud: Any credible newspaper that has a national flagship title should be subject to proper regulation.

1:37:25 Brian Rose: Okay, okay. And new media, are you happy with what you see happening with new media? Is that the counterbalance to some of these old-school…

1:37:36 Derek Laud: No, I think new media is terrible.

1:37:39 I think it’s part of the dehumanisation of society. I think it is used dangerously. I think it’s absolutely despicable that the internet is pretty much homegrown in the United States of America, that they don’t do more to close down disreputable websites.

1:38:12 Brian Rose: It’s freedom of speech, Derek. They might close us down if we can’t talk.

1:38:22 Derek Laud: You don’t have the freedom of speech to tell lies about people. You don’t have that right.

1:38:31 Brian Rose: Well, they can sue you for libel for that.

1:38:35 Derek Laud: Yeah, no, no, but if you assume that people have the money, you can do it. You know, this is, I think, the greatest threat at the new age of media.

1:38:50 Is that anyone can print anything and it might be believed in a short news cycle.

1:38:55 Brian Rose: Correct. That’s understood. And that people can be manipulated through images and pieces like that. Correct.

1:39:02 Okay, that’s a good point. Derek, I always ask everyone here at the end a few questions and I’m going to ask you the same. If you can make a phone call to the 20-year-old Derek Ward and give that young man a bit of advice, what would you tell him to do?

1:39:19 Derek Laud: I think I would always say, even if it’s difficult, tell the truth.

1:39:24 Brian Rose: Have you always told the truth?

1:39:26 Derek Laud: No.

1:39:26 Brian Rose: And is that to other people about who you are or is that in general?

1:39:34 Derek Laud: No, I think in general, you know, the thing that is significant to the advancement of my contemporaries is that they never told the truth. They always said what the boss wanted to hear. And I would prefer to do it more my way, is to actually say to people things that they don’t want to hear.

1:40:06 Brian Rose: Right, and in that sense, speaking my truth. Best advice you’ve ever received could be business, could be personal.

1:40:20 Derek Laud: I think that is, I find that difficult. There’s been so many, and I don’t think of one in particular, but I suppose I learned this very early on from my family, was whatever the provocation, always be discreet and you do not let people down.

1:40:50 Brian Rose: Hmm, be discreet, don’t let people down.

1:40:55 Final question, to the 20-year-old that’s listening to her, someone in the world who wants a career in politics, you might have already answered this question, but what do you tell them? What should they do?

1:41:12 Derek Laud: Well, I think you’ve got to be aware that it’s very competitive and you’ll have more enemies than friends and you’ve got to be able to cope with that.

1:41:25 Brian Rose: Okay, and one thing I wanted to ask you, how do you sit down and write a speech for someone like, you know, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, how do you go about doing that?

1:41:39 Derek Laud: Well, no one person writes a speech. I think that in that marvellous film, The West Wing, I appeared on a programme, I was interviewed with him, I can’t remember who played the president in it, you can remember.

1:41:56 Brian Rose: Martin Sheen.

1:41:57 Derek Laud: Good-looking, no, it wasn’t. No, it wasn’t Martin Sheen.

1:42:01 It was somebody rather good-looking.

1:42:05 Brian Rose: I watched that, okay.

1:42:08 Derek Laud: Anyway, you see everybody marching in with reams of paper to write the presidential address, you know, and like anything else, it’s a team effort when you write for somebody. You’re contributing your ideas, you’re contributing your wizardry, your capacity to communicate in a language that will be understood and also remembered. But I think that the greatest thing of all to remember about speech writing for anybody is that it’s never your speech, it’s theirs.

1:43:02 Brian Rose: Right. And if it’s not congruent with their character, no one’s going to buy it.

1:43:06 Derek Laud: Correct.

1:43:07 Brian Rose: It must be a fascinating piece. I mean, I’m sure it’s not as glamorous as the TV shows make it, but it must be fascinating to kind of brainstorm and think what’s going to resonate, what isn’t, you know, down to the word choice, I guess, which is a very big thing.

1:43:20 Oh, so it’s…

1:43:22 Derek Laud: And I never stopped doing it. I mean, I came back from Capri, and as soon as the plane landed, I switched on my telephone. And there was a draft of something that had to go out to the media today that a cabinet minister sent to me and asked me whether I’d look at. So I looked at it, as it were, on the escalator, and something occurred to me.

1:43:57 So I replied about the draft, and a phrase just occurred to me that was appropriate, and I gave it. So this is absolutely brilliant, you know, and it’s on the airwaves at the moment. So it’s in the veins. You never stop doing it.

1:44:18 Brian Rose: Fascinating stuff.

1:44:20 Derek Ward, thank you for being here. The book is called The Problem With Immigrants. You know, you’re a very fascinating person. I don’t even feel like I… There’s probably another 10 things we could have talked about you and your ideas and your travel and where you’re going next.

1:44:36 And it’s nice for me to see someone who evolves all the time. Not many people do that. People tend to stink at one thing they’re good at because they think it’s comfortable, and to try all these different things on and to do it with, you know, class, you know, and the way you handled yourself in Big Brother, you know, it’s refreshing to see and it’s inspiring to see. So thanks for your time. Thanks for your perspectives.

1:45:01 I do appreciate what politics used to be like, and I think it’s so hard to remember, you know, what things were like back then, and movie depictions don’t really give you a feel for what it’s like. And, you know, without the past, we don’t know the future. So look forward to your next book. And stay in touch. Please give Mr. Chris Eubank a strong punch from me.

1:45:23 Derek Laud: No, I’ll give him a kiss. How about that?

1:45:25 Brian Rose: Deal. And thanks so much. As you say on London Real, it’s about the journey.

1:45:30 I wish you well on yours.

1:45:40 Derek Laud: Thank you. Take care. Thank you very much. Thank you.