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Conversations with Tyler is produced

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by the Mercatus Center at George Mason

0:08

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between academic ideas and real-world

0:12

problems. Learn more at

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mercatus.org. For a

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full transcript of every conversation,

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enhanced with helpful links, visit

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conversationswithtyler.com. Today

0:27

I'm chatting with Tom Tugendhat. Tom has served

0:29

as a member of Parliament for Tone Bridge

0:31

since 2015. He

0:33

has served as Security Minister. He

0:35

has also stood up to the

0:37

UK's enemies and been sanctioned by

0:39

Russia, China, and Iran for that

0:41

privilege. As a backbencher, Tom

0:44

was elected by MPs to serve as the

0:46

Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Before

0:48

being elected as an MP, Tom

0:51

served in military operations in Iraq

0:53

and Afghanistan. He's worked for

0:55

the Foreign Office, helped to set up

0:57

the National Security Council of Afghanistan, and

1:00

on returning to the UK, Tom served

1:02

as military assistant to the Chief of

1:04

the Defence Staff, the professional head of

1:07

the UK Armed Forces. Tom,

1:09

welcome. Thank you, Tyler. It's lovely to see you.

1:11

Forgive me, I've just been interrupted by a child.

1:14

Children are welcome. This is my boy, Adam. This is

1:16

my boy, Adam. Hi, Adam. Good to see you

1:18

again. You probably don't remember me. You

1:21

remember Tyler? You met Tyler? No.

1:24

You did meet Tyler, yes. I don't remember. Oh,

1:27

I'm sorry. His memory isn't as good as

1:29

yours. I'm fine. OK, Pooja, can you leave me alone? How old

1:31

was I? A few years ago. Two years

1:33

ago. Two years ago, exactly. Can you close the door,

1:35

please? Sorry, I apologise for that. No, don't worry. No

1:38

problem. You know the famous Korean clip? Yes. By

1:41

CNN. OK, first

1:43

question. What is your favourite walk around London? I'm not sure. I've

1:46

never been to London. I've never been to London. I've

1:48

never been to London. I've never been to London. OK, first

1:51

question. What is your favourite

1:53

walk around London, and what does

1:55

it show about the city that outsiders might

1:57

not understand? Oh, my favourite…

2:00

walk is down the river and you know a

2:02

lot of people walk down the river but one

2:04

of the best things about walking down the river

2:06

in London is first of all it shows two

2:08

things one that London is actually incredibly private place

2:11

you can be completely on your own in the

2:13

center of one of the biggest cities in the

2:15

world within seconds just by walking

2:17

down the river there's very often even in the

2:19

middle of the day there's nobody there and

2:22

you walk past things that are just extraordinary you

2:24

walk past a customs house okay it's not used

2:26

anymore but it was the customs house for three

2:28

four five hundred years you walk past obviously the

2:30

Tower of London you will pass Tower Bridge you

2:32

will pass many things like that but

2:34

actually you're walking past a lot of modern London

2:36

as well and you see the

2:39

reality of London which is actually the truth

2:41

is London isn't a single city it's

2:43

many many different villages all cobbled together

2:45

in various different ways and

2:48

so I think outsiders miss the fact that

2:50

there's there's a real intimacy to London that

2:52

you miss if you all you're doing is you're going on the

2:54

tube or if you're going on the bus if you walk down

2:56

that river you see a very

2:58

very different kind of London you see it these real

3:01

communities and real small smaller communities

3:04

as a question of governance how

3:06

does London becoming so large so

3:09

wealthy so successful mesh

3:11

with the relatively weak federalism of the

3:13

UK one might think if you

3:15

have a city that critical you need a

3:17

lot of federalism to build up the intermediary

3:19

bodies governing it is to something there

3:21

need to be changed or is it optimal as is I

3:24

think it does need to be changed but the

3:26

reality is the UK is a very very centralized

3:28

state I mean although there is a mayor of

3:30

London of course there's a mayor of London the

3:32

reality is the mayor have very very limited powers

3:34

they control transport for London they are joint

3:37

heads of the city police force

3:39

Metropolitan Police the Home Secretary that's

3:41

our interior minister and the mayor

3:43

of London both have the

3:45

ability to fire the commissioner of the Metropolitan

3:47

Police and the mayor has certain rights

3:50

or rather powers on planning but acts

3:52

actually mixed with the boroughs as well

3:54

so it's it's it's a much more diffuse system

3:57

and if you compare it to the United States

3:59

it's no way near as powerful as

4:01

the mayor of New York, for example, or a

4:03

regional governor or something like that,

4:05

or a state governor. Sorry, forgive me. So

4:08

how should we change that to make London better

4:10

governed? Well, I think the big

4:12

thing for London actually is to make sure that its

4:14

transport connections to the region are stronger. I mean, the

4:16

real holdup for the whole of the United Kingdom is

4:18

the lack of infrastructure investment over whatever it is, 30,

4:21

40 years. We've

4:23

just seen Crossrail built, and already it looks

4:25

like it's going to be a break-even point

4:27

in the next five or six years, which

4:29

is a remarkable speed of return. And the

4:31

reason for the speed of the returns, frankly,

4:34

that so little other infrastructure has been built.

4:36

So it's almost in a, it's

4:38

not quite a monopoly provider status, but you know

4:40

what I mean. It's got such a dominant ability

4:42

to provide for the community that it's making a

4:44

huge difference. And the biggest thing that London could do

4:47

is to get the investment going. But it's not

4:49

just true of London. That's true of Manchester, Birmingham,

4:51

all of our cities and all of our towns

4:53

as well. We need a massive injection of infrastructure

4:56

investment in the United Kingdom, and we need the

4:58

leadership to provide it. Because if you look at

5:00

the pattern of growth in the United Kingdom, we

5:02

were growing at a very healthy percentage, you know,

5:04

2 to 3 percent up until 2007, 8. And

5:08

the fall-off since then has left

5:10

us effectively, I mean, depending on

5:12

who you ask, anywhere between 18 and 25 percent poorer. Why

5:16

do you think England in particular

5:19

is so unbalanced economically, compared, say,

5:21

to the Netherlands or Germany? What

5:23

is it in the history? Or is it

5:26

really just the infrastructure links? So

5:28

the infrastructure is hugely important. If you're not willing

5:30

to connect Britain, guess what? You

5:32

get concentrations. You get real concentrations.

5:35

And then the challenge is you get the concentrations and

5:37

you don't get the housing. So if you don't have

5:39

the housing, you don't have the ability to invest. And

5:42

one of the striking things actually is

5:44

the mayor of London, who's been in place

5:46

now for eight and a bit years, has

5:48

been a complete failure in building houses. He's

5:50

been really reticent on building houses and he

5:52

talks about rent control, which, as you know,

5:54

the moment you start talking about rent control,

5:56

nobody wants to rent a house and nobody

5:58

wants to build a house because it, I

6:01

mean... don't need me to tell you this,

6:03

Tyler, but is one of the single greatest

6:05

threats to the ability to house people is

6:07

to introduce rent controls. It's a complete disaster

6:09

of a policy that's been tried 100 times

6:11

and failed 100 times. And that's what he's

6:13

talking about. But that's labor's controlling attitude rather

6:15

than the ability to build. So I think

6:17

there is a strong argument for having greater

6:19

devolved interest in infrastructure development. But

6:21

we're a smaller country than the United States.

6:24

So infrastructure can't be all local, can't be

6:26

all done at a state level, if you

6:28

see what I mean. But nor can it

6:30

be all national as we're so much bigger

6:32

than, say, Belgium or the Netherlands. So we

6:35

need that relationship. We need a better relationship

6:37

between our devolved powers and our national power.

6:39

And that's something we haven't achieved yet. What's

6:42

your most controversial opinion about London

6:45

architecture? Oh,

6:47

the recent architecture actually can

6:49

be absolutely fantastic. There's some really beautiful

6:51

recent architecture. There's some beautiful town squares

6:53

or the sort of urban squares built

6:56

recently. And the condemnation of modern architecture,

6:58

I think, is wrong. I'm a fan

7:00

of what some architects call pastiche. You

7:02

don't have to reinvent the wheel every

7:05

single time. If there's a good design,

7:07

if there's a good form of architecture

7:09

that works that people like, I don't

7:12

see what's wrong with repeating it just

7:14

because you've changed the plumbing or the

7:16

wiring behind the facade. But

7:18

even though we're much wealthier and better educated,

7:21

it seems that we, and I don't just

7:23

mean the UK here, we can't build anything

7:25

like, say, Bath or

7:27

York. And why is that? Where

7:30

have we gone wrong? Well, we

7:32

can actually. The King has built Poundbury.

7:34

I've seen some fantastic designs for communities

7:36

near Faverisham. I've seen some really

7:39

nice designs for communities in other parts of Kent.

7:41

And there are people who are willing to do

7:43

it. But the challenge you've got is you've got

7:45

to have long term interest. And

7:47

actually, the great irony is that what we've

7:50

swapped is we've swapped the ability

7:52

to plan for the long term with the ability

7:54

to plan only for the short. And once you

7:56

do that, then you put huge financial constraints on.

7:58

And once you restrict. one

24:00

day there'll only be five kings left. The

24:02

King of Hearts, the King of Spades, the

24:04

King of Clubs, the King of Diamonds, and

24:06

the King of England. I think

24:08

he's partly right, and the reason he's partly

24:10

right is because it was the Queen's

24:13

genius, actually. I mean, we've never

24:15

been better governed and better ruled that when

24:17

our reigning monarch is a woman, we've always

24:19

had very, very good women monarchs, Queen Elizabeth,

24:21

Queen Victoria, and then Queen Elizabeth again. It's

24:24

been a remarkable success that she's been able

24:26

to be a guiding

24:28

presence without her voice becoming in any

24:30

way strident or separatist. She's never divided,

24:32

and that was a remarkable gift. Now,

24:35

it's also, I think, the benefit that

24:37

the English language really helps, and I

24:39

think the fact that most

24:41

people in England – well, certainly

24:44

in England, Wales and Scotland,

24:46

the numbers are slightly different, but most people

24:48

in Northern Ireland are, of course, different again.

24:50

But most people in the United Kingdom take the monarchy seriously

24:53

and respectfully, but know that it's not

24:56

relevant in a day-to-day sense. I think

24:59

divorcing the splendid from the sordid, if you

25:01

like, is rather a healthy way of having

25:03

a government. We don't like our Prime Minister

25:06

to be bathed in gold and glory, and

25:08

we certainly look at your presidential system sometimes

25:10

with a little surprise. It does

25:12

surprise my American friends when I tell them that

25:14

the entire government can fly in the same plane,

25:17

but the King and the Prince of Wales are

25:19

never allowed to travel together. Has

25:21

the extent of devolution for Scotland

25:23

and Northern Ireland gone too

25:25

far? Because to an outsider, it seems like

25:28

they have a great deal of autonomy, but

25:30

actually not quite enough responsibility for the wellbeing

25:32

of the whole polity? So

25:35

I think I wouldn't say it's gone too far.

25:37

No, I'd say it's imbalanced, and I think

25:39

that's right. I think there's an old

25:42

principle, which you'll know, of aligning accountability,

25:44

responsibility, and authority. And one of

25:46

the challenges we've got in our devolution system in the

25:48

UK at the moment is, you

25:50

know, you'd have to be nuts

25:52

as a devolved representative seeking

25:55

office not to promise to pave the

25:57

streets of your community with gold and then to blame

25:59

West Virginia. But

28:00

that links me to a lost past in

28:03

Eastern Europe that I think reminds me

28:05

why the investments and the efforts

28:07

that you make in your own home are

28:09

so absolutely fundamental to guarding your freedom

28:11

as well. The work that we

28:14

do in defending British democracy is absolutely fundamental

28:16

to guarding all of our liberties. Do

28:18

you think you end up with a deeper

28:20

understanding of Northern Ireland as a result? It's

28:24

very hard to overstate

28:26

the complexity of Northern Ireland. As somebody who's

28:28

had the privilege of having many Northern Irish

28:30

friends from many different communities, be careful what

28:32

you think you understand. If you think you

28:34

understand Northern Ireland, you may not be understanding

28:36

anything at all. The immunity

28:38

provisions of the 2023 Legacy

28:41

Act for Northern Ireland. Good

28:43

idea, bad idea, you're not sure? Well

28:45

look, they're unnecessary I'm afraid. It's

28:49

incredibly painful because

28:51

for everybody there's a legacy

28:54

of pain and loss, right? And

28:56

everybody feels quite understandably that they

28:58

want to have recourse to justice.

29:01

But the reality is that we've now had 40 years

29:04

of inquiries, many of them quite

29:07

literally raking up very, very, very old

29:10

information again and again and again and

29:12

again. And the people who

29:14

are now being forced through these judicial processes

29:17

are now usually men,

29:19

or in fact almost entirely men

29:21

in their late 70s, 80s,

29:24

whose recollection of events, if they

29:26

have any recollections at all, are

29:28

pretty sketchy. And so we've

29:30

got to a point where the correct way

29:32

of having inquiry into the past

29:34

is to do historical inquiry

29:36

based on written record. And I

29:38

think that's what this offers. What

29:41

did you learn on active service in

29:43

Afghanistan that most people would be surprised

29:45

by? Be kind. Be

29:48

kind. Yeah. What

29:51

do you think is the case

29:53

for medium term semi-optimism about Afghanistan,

29:55

or is there no such case?

29:59

Medium term I think. It's really

30:01

hard to make even a medium term optimistic

30:03

case. I think there's a long term optimistic

30:05

case, but it requires

30:07

some really fundamental changes to several

30:10

of its neighboring states. Because

30:13

the reality is Afghanistan hasn't been

30:15

either in civil war or been

30:18

the death of empires as people claim.

30:21

It's been the playground of others.

30:23

So you constantly see that bits

30:26

of Afghanistan are dominated by bits of

30:28

their neighbors. That domination

30:30

leads to internal frictions and frictions between

30:32

the two neighbors. So you look at

30:35

the way in which parts of Afghanistan

30:37

are effectively played over by different political

30:39

interests from the region. You see the

30:41

effect on the lives of particularly

30:43

women and girls, but actually everybody in Afghanistan.

30:46

It's hard to see without the

30:49

regional changes any real optimism.

30:52

How did studying Arabic and Yemen affect

30:54

your life trajectory? Massively

30:56

and completely unexpectedly. I studied it because

30:59

I was interested in it. I'm a

31:01

theology student and I'm just interested in

31:03

other religions. I thought I

31:05

was studying Islam out of interest, but it's

31:07

because I spoke Arabic that I was mobilized

31:10

to fight in Iraq. Because I was mobilized

31:12

to fight in Iraq, I

31:14

then served in the foreign office

31:16

and then stayed in the military and ended

31:19

up in politics. So it's been, funnily

31:21

enough, it's one of the most consequential decisions

31:23

I ever took and I took it very

31:26

lightly. But what happened? What

31:28

happens next after you do that? What do you mean? After

31:31

I studied Arabic or? Yeah. How

31:33

did that lead to the next stage of your life? Oh, I

31:35

see. So I studied

31:37

Arabic because I was doing a Masters in

31:39

the Islamic and because I spoke Arabic when

31:41

I left university, I decided to be a

31:43

journalist and because I spoke Arabic and French,

31:45

I went to Beirut. And so

31:48

I learned to be a journalist by working on

31:50

a local paper in Beirut. Did

31:52

that for a few years, went back to the

31:55

United Kingdom and was a management consultant for a

31:57

little bit. And while I was doing that,

31:59

I joined the... legitimacy

34:01

and makes you look like a competent

34:03

military power. So it's done for a

34:05

different reason. Now, how should I think

34:07

about Iran? If I see Iranians abroad,

34:09

they do so very well, including in

34:12

Britain. Iran itself has a

34:14

lot of science, a lot of tech,

34:16

engineering, great deal of talent, and

34:18

it seems energy. Yet

34:20

the country is somehow fundamentally weak.

34:23

They have a very bad government.

34:25

They cannot exercise deterrence. What's

34:27

the most fundamental way of thinking about what's gone wrong

34:29

there? Well, I think

34:31

you should think about Iran extremely

34:34

positively. Iran is an incredible country,

34:36

often unbelievably rich civilization. As

34:38

you know, you don't need me to tell you that. It's

34:40

an amazing place with some of the most

34:43

extraordinary scientists and artists that

34:46

any culture has ever produced. It's a remarkable

34:48

place. You should think about the Iranian regime

34:50

very differently. That is a

34:52

cancerous growth on the back of a country

34:54

that came out of the chaos of a

34:57

revolution that many people thought was going to

34:59

go a completely different way and

35:01

has effectively leached the life out of

35:03

millions of people in the most horrific

35:06

way. I mean, it's one

35:08

of the most brutal and psychotic

35:10

actors in a dangerous region. What

35:13

it's offering now is effectively a millenarian

35:15

death cult. When people

35:17

tell you what they believe, it's often wise to

35:19

believe that they're telling you the truth. They're

35:22

telling us very clearly that what they're doing

35:24

is they're preparing for the coming of the

35:26

Mahdi. They

35:28

need to destroy Israel and conquer Jerusalem in

35:30

order to achieve it. They seem to be

35:32

acting in that way. At least as

35:34

of the time we're talking in September 2024,

35:37

their behavior is very cautious. They're

35:39

not seeking to be sent to heaven immediately. As

35:43

a social scientist, I'm a little

35:45

suspicious of explanations where the society

35:47

and the government are so totally

35:49

different, even under autocracy. Do

35:52

you see what I'm saying? It's still fine with me.

35:56

I see what you're saying, and in normal cases, I

35:59

would sympathize. The reality is though, this

36:01

is a very brutal autocracy. It does

36:04

murder an awful lot of people a

36:06

year and it has successfully got most,

36:08

well not most, but it's successfully got

36:10

many people expelled from

36:12

the country. So there's a lot of, there's a

36:14

huge Iranian diaspora, as you know, all over the

36:17

world. There are many extremely impressive

36:19

Iranians who've followed their

36:21

own lives away from the dictatorship. I

36:23

think that sort of alignment of government

36:25

and people is easier when you can,

36:28

when people can travel and be exiled. And I

36:30

think that's what we're seeing. And what we're seeing

36:32

is a vile failure of leadership

36:34

and a failure of responsibility. We've seen

36:36

a, we're seeing a government that absolutely

36:40

brutalized an entire nation. So I think, you

36:42

know, and one of the things you're also

36:44

seeing is that the government has realized that

36:46

it can conduct a lot of its, a

36:48

lot of its violence through proxies. So we

36:50

just spoke about the Houthis, but it's also

36:52

true that Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah are

36:55

mere proxies in many ways for the

36:57

Iranian state. Now,

36:59

when your earlier role as security minister

37:01

and other posts, you've had access to

37:03

a lot of classified information. Of

37:05

course, we wouldn't ask you to share that with us, but

37:08

could you give us a sense, how much has that

37:10

changed your view of the world? Is it like you

37:12

learn all those things and then you say, oh my

37:14

God, this is how the world works. I never figured

37:16

that. Or do you just make more

37:18

original adjustments based on what you've learned? I

37:21

won't tell you any secrets, but I suppose the one secret

37:23

that I can tell you that some people just won't believe

37:25

me is conspiracies are unbelievably difficult.

37:27

And I just don't believe in them

37:29

anymore. I believe in cock up. I

37:32

believe there's huge numbers of mistakes that

37:34

happen and people are constantly misjudging things

37:36

that I believe in. And

37:38

that leads to very, very unpredictable

37:40

outcomes in some circumstances. But, but

37:42

I think the conspiracies, I'm afraid,

37:44

I don't believe in them. Taiwan

37:47

and South Korea rose in per

37:49

capita income. They became democratic. They're

37:51

very healthy, vital democracies. China did

37:53

not. Many people thought it would.

37:55

What's the difference? Freedom. But

37:58

Taiwan and South Korea didn't. have freedom? They

38:02

had enough freedom. And the freedom

38:04

you need is the freedom to be able to

38:06

hold your own property, to know that wealth that

38:09

you accumulate you'll be able to keep, and that

38:11

deals you make will be in some way reasonably

38:14

adjudicated when there's a dispute. And Taiwan

38:16

and South Korea both had that. China

38:19

has an entirely separate court system. It has

38:21

an arbitrary wealth removal system,

38:23

to put it nicely. It

38:25

has a very brutal tyrannical

38:27

government that runs in a

38:29

very disjointed way. If you're a member of the

38:32

party, you have one form of court system. If

38:34

you're not, you have a different. And

38:36

that has led to massive internal

38:39

corruption. And I don't just mean

38:41

in the usual sense, but corruption in the sense

38:43

that it's very difficult to predict the ownership of

38:45

assets in large scale. And that's really difficult, right?

38:47

I mean, it just makes investment for the long

38:49

term difficult. You saw the arrest of Jack Ma

38:52

being evidence of that. That

38:54

was one of those moments where the wealthy got

38:56

too big for their boots and were challenging the

38:58

party, and the party will always come first. If

39:01

we think about Russia for a long

39:03

time, maybe forever, Russia has not been

39:05

close to a free country. If

39:08

you had to try to explain in

39:10

as most fundamental and conceptual terms as

39:12

possible why that is true,

39:14

how do you understand Russian history? Why

39:16

has it gone so badly? So

39:18

many times. I've read a

39:21

fair amount of Russian history, but I'm afraid

39:23

I just simply can't explain it, but it

39:25

consistently goes wrong. I ask myself whether it's

39:27

to do with the scale

39:29

of the country, whether it's to do with the

39:31

fact that the levels of education

39:33

or the levels of connection between urban

39:36

and rural areas are so great. I don't know,

39:38

but your wife left the Soviet Union when was

39:40

it? Yeah, 1992, yeah. Yeah.

39:43

I mean, what would your view be?

39:45

I mean, I find it very difficult to say

39:47

much about Russia. I think it's a

39:50

mix of size. It's

39:52

neighbors. It had its own version of

39:54

the Turner thesis where it expanded, but

39:56

that made them more brutal rather than

39:58

giving them outlets. to be free. Urban

40:01

rural imbalance, which you mentioned, partly

40:04

heritage from a more Eastern

40:06

version of Christianity, maybe

40:08

is somewhat more authoritarian, never

40:11

feeling secure, repeatedly having been

40:13

invaded and almost having lost

40:16

a number of historically significant

40:18

times, and being

40:20

this odd mix of European and Asian and

40:23

even Muslim cultures mixed together in a way

40:25

that has never quite had a stable core

40:27

at its center. So there's always this great

40:29

fear of losing order. But that's

40:31

just me. I mean, I'm just making that up, right? We

40:33

can't test these views. We can't,

40:36

but there's a constant fear of chaos

40:38

in the Russian side. As you know,

40:40

my wife's mother

40:42

was of a Russian family. And the

40:45

fear of chaos is something that seems to live

40:48

in a lot of the Russians that we know,

40:50

where they're constantly afraid you're going to lose everything.

40:53

But then of course, if you look at Russian history,

40:55

even over the last hundred years, the probability of losing

40:57

everything every 30 or 40 years is quite high. In

41:00

fact, you remind me of a conversation I had with a friend

41:02

of mine who was an Estonian about

41:04

10 years ago, who was telling me that they

41:06

would set up this e-citizenship thing, which I don't

41:08

know if you know about it, but you can

41:10

become an e-citizen of Estonia. And

41:12

the whole of the Estonian public record, everything

41:15

is now online, every court case,

41:17

every land treaty, everything, everything's online.

41:20

And they've outsourced their record holding

41:22

to, I think it's New

41:24

Zealand, Canada, and Scotland, because they're all

41:26

common law jurisdictions with stable governments. And

41:29

I said, oh, well, that's an extraordinary thing to do. Why have

41:31

you done that? And he said, oh, well, so when the Russians

41:33

come, I said, what do you mean

41:35

when? And he said, oh, they always come. Every 40

41:37

years or so, the Russians come and they destroy us.

41:39

So when the Russians come, we want to be a

41:41

people without a land. Should

41:44

the UK modernize its nuclear deterrent? And

41:46

if so, how? Yes, we

41:48

should. In fact, we're in the process of doing

41:50

it in various different ways. And we should be

41:52

constantly doing it. Forgive me, I'm not going to

41:54

talk about how. Sure. The no

41:56

first use policy should never announce

41:59

such a thing. I don't think

42:01

that anybody who's ever been privy to the

42:03

nuclear command chain should ever discuss it. I

42:06

have a few questions about the Tom

42:08

Tukun-Tot production function. What's your favorite novel?

42:11

The Rodetsky March. It's fabulous. It's about

42:13

– have you read it? Of course.

42:15

Joseph Roth. Wonderful. Exactly. It's

42:18

about the end of a certain world

42:21

and the beginning of a new one. In

42:23

many ways, it's very mournful. Of

42:25

course, it's a book about loss. It's a

42:27

book about the end. But it's also

42:30

a book about novelty and innovation because

42:32

it's the arrival of things. It's

42:34

the arrival of the telegram, the arrival of the

42:36

train, the arrival of that modernity and the challenge

42:39

that that brings. What's

42:41

your favorite movie? Quite

42:43

a few that I quite like, actually.

42:45

I've recently watched again, Shorshank Redemption, which

42:47

is just an absolute classic. It's

42:50

a classic because the dialogue is amazing. I

42:52

love The Princess Bride, which is incredibly funny

42:54

and still has some of the greatest comic

42:56

lines in the English language. These

42:58

are two of my favorites. Do James

43:01

Bond movies have a future? So to

43:03

some people, they feel too politically incorrect. In

43:06

the last Bond movie, this is no longer a

43:08

spoiler. Bond dies at the end. That

43:10

just seemed wrong to me. What

43:12

can they do with the franchise to keep

43:14

it fresh when there's a lot of competition

43:16

from other spy figures, the Bourne movies, many

43:19

others? What is going to

43:21

make James Bond distinctive going forward? The

43:23

brand. I mean, you know this, Tyler. You don't need

43:25

me to tell you this. But as an

43:27

economist, the brand matters, right? The brand is

43:29

your assurance that enough money will be spent

43:31

on it, that they don't want to devalue

43:33

it, that the special effects will be good

43:35

enough, the music will be original enough, the

43:37

screenwriter will be famous enough, whatever it

43:39

is that you're looking for, the actors will be

43:42

popular enough. You know, it'll all be there because

43:44

the brand is strong enough. So I don't know

43:46

who the next Bond is going to be. I'm

43:48

sure they could be from any background at all.

43:50

A little bit like the Doctor Who franchise with

43:52

the Doctor Re. They have a term for it.

43:54

I don't know what the term is now, but

43:56

they reappear in various different human forms. Bond

43:59

will reemerge. corporals

48:00

demonstrating real leadership and the person I

48:02

work for, the chief of the defense

48:04

staff, so the most senior general in

48:06

the British Army, demonstrating real strategic leadership.

48:09

And I've seen that we need to act

48:11

on it. And so I brought what

48:14

I thought was the best of that. And I tried to

48:16

bring some of that to parliament

48:19

because there's a lot of people

48:21

who these days, I know in both

48:23

of our cultures, because there's a very high respect for the

48:25

military in the United States and the United Kingdom, there's a

48:27

lot of people who say, oh, there must be a military

48:29

answer to this, not just by

48:31

the use of force, but you know, you call in a

48:34

general to fix a problem because you know, generals do stuff.

48:36

And of course, that on one level, that's,

48:39

that's true, that's right. But on a level,

48:41

it simply cannot be right. That

48:43

the only way to help disadvantaged kids is for

48:45

them to join the armed forces, or the only

48:47

way for, you know, young people to have an

48:49

opportunity from a certain area is to join the

48:51

armed forces. But time and again, the young men

48:53

and women I was working with had a brother

48:55

or a sister or a parent who was unbelievably

48:58

disadvantaged and just couldn't get a way out of

49:00

it. And they got out of it through the

49:02

military. But again, that can't be the only way

49:04

out of it. And so I got into politics,

49:06

because I think you've

49:08

got to find a better way of fixing things, you've

49:10

got to find a better way out of these things,

49:13

you've got to find a better way of solving these

49:15

problems. And I think a military attitude helps because it's

49:17

a, it's an attitude of

49:19

building a team and delivering. And it's an attitude

49:21

that seeks to

49:23

respect and support leadership. And

49:25

offering that leadership, I think is what matters. And that's why

49:27

I'm standing as well. I'm standing because I think if

49:30

you want to serve your country, if you want to offer leadership at

49:32

a moment when frankly, the world is deeply uncertain

49:36

and the challenges at home of

49:38

underinvestment over 30, 40 years

49:40

have never been more obvious. The need to

49:42

act in the national interest has never been

49:44

stronger. And that's, you know, that's what I

49:46

think we need out of British politics today.

49:49

Tom Duke and Todd, thank you very much. Thanks,

49:51

Tyler. It's good to see you again. Same here. Thanks

49:57

for listening to Conversations with Tyler.

50:00

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50:15

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