Amber Rudd

What sort of deal can the Tories strike with Farage come the election? The ex-Home Secretary says it's not looking good! 

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Transcript

Jeremy Lee 0:15

My name's Jeremy Lee. You know what to expect by now. Today it's the turn of the great and good. Welcome, Amber Rudd.

Amber Rudd 0:26

Thank you, Jeremy. Pleasure to be here.

Jeremy Lee 0:29

It's very good to see you. Now, Amber, I have to say this because it is the most attention-grabbing fact in your Wikipedia entry that you were. I love the nervousness that's descended on your face. You were so-called aristocracy coordinator for four weddings and a funeral.

Amber Rudd 0:51

Yes, I'm puffing myself up slightly, just remembering it.

Jeremy Lee 0:55

You were responsible for finding posh extras, is that right?

Amber Rudd 0:59

It was a small British film at the time. And a friend of a friend of a friend called me up and said, Could you help us have some posh people in the background for these weddings? We need their accent and we need their clothes, because we can't afford, you know, wedding clothes for posh weddings. And I said, How much are we paying these people? And it was £100 a day, which you know, 30 years ago was quite a lot of money to lounge around. You'd have enjoyed that role, Jeremy, I feel certain.

Jeremy Lee 1:28

I don't think I'd have been chosen, but I would have enjoyed it. You're right there.

Amber Rudd 1:31

And so on we went. And it turned into, as we know, the great British success that it was. And when my political career sort of took off, I was a little nervous that it might be not quite in keeping with David Cameron's sort of people of the people approach to government. But it didn't really come out until there was a moment when my daughter pointed out that the IMDB ran Amber Rad's one activity, which was extra an advisor for four weddings and a funeral. And then later on in my political career, they added trivial fact, home secretary.

Jeremy Lee 2:06

You know, there is just a little bit of a sort of King Lear type sort of truth about that. I mean, with the greatest of respect, Amber, four weddings and a funeral will be around. I don't want to be nasty because you had, I'm going to be terribly serious, Matt. You had a meteoric political career after doing whatever you did in uh investment banking and venture capital and so on. You were elected MP for Hastings and Rye at a time when politicians were already less trusted than estate agents. Because this was after the MP's expenses and allowance scandal. That's right. And so the first question is why? What was your motivation for standing? I know you'd stood before, but you stood a proper chance in Hastings. What was your motivation?

Amber Rudd 3:04

I always was interested in current affairs and in politics. And it didn't occur to me until more mature years, shall we say, that I could actually perhaps try to become a member of parliament. I had a feeling that it might answer something in me that I thought would be important and good. And engaging in a constituency gave a lot of that to me, i.e., the whole business of going around, you know, going to the church fairs, supporting people, standing up to bullies, quite a lot of that going on as a local MP. So I wanted to do it for that, but I also wanted to do it to be a conservative MP because I believed very strongly in the whole conservative values of smaller, smaller state, supporting businesses and using those profits to support the civil service, the public service. I mean, I think my background was in small businesses, and I have never wavered in my admiration for people who employ people. And it takes huge guts and nerve, something I expect you know a bit about, Jeremy, and the business of kind of, you know, the risk that you take to opening up your own business. And I worry that politicians don't give enough credit to business people for that because bloody hell it's hard. Also, I have two children and I bought them off my own, and they were getting to, you know, they were getting to adult teenage years, and I thought I could risk it.

Jeremy Lee 4:29

Uh because I thought you were going to say having small children was like running a small business.

Amber Rudd 4:34

Well, there is that too. Just a bit messier, I think, generally. By 2010, when I got elected, my youngest child was 17. So I thought I was gonna kind of through it, so I could spend more time on myself, really, in terms of what doing what I really wanted to do, which was be an MP, because it takes up a lot of your time.

Jeremy Lee 4:54

And what not everybody will readily remember is that your rise genuinely was meteoric. And you, well, you had three major cabinet roles, as it turned out, under three different prime ministers. I've written down here energy and climate change, work and pensions, and home secretary. But of course, you were Home Secretary before you came back and went to work and pensions. And it has to be said, you were also responsible, Minister for Women Inequalities. And when you think about it, in a relatively short space of time, as these things invariably are, you had an extraordinary breadth of responsibility. It's quite chilling in a way. At least I find it quite chilling. You carry on, you look as though you want to.

Amber Rudd 5:43

I got a few breaks. And I I say to people going into politics now is that you can't really control your own life. That is the trouble with politics, unlike perhaps business, is that first of all, you don't know whether your party's going to get into government. You can try as hard as you want, but it's going to make very little difference. The national swing is the national swing. Secondly, you don't know whether the prime minister is going to promote you, notice you, move you on, or just ignore you. So those two things mean that it's it's so much is chance, really, and the wind being behind you. So I got in in 2010, David Cameron was the leader of the party. No, he didn't know me. People think that, oh well, did David Cameron, no you know. But there is something about having a marginal seat which makes you of more interest to the Prime Minister.

Jeremy Lee 6:34

You didn't meet on the set of four weddings. He wasn't in that clique. No, he wasn't in that prime. Right, okay. Just wanted to check. I've been thinking about these three prime ministers. Okay, this is tough because I want one-word answers, preferably without much of a pause. Okay, so you served under David Cameron, Theresa May, and Boris Johnson. Just between us. Which of them was the best leader?

Amber Rudd 7:01

David Cameron.

Jeremy Lee 7:03

Who was the most dependable or honourable?

Amber Rudd 7:06

Theresa May.

Jeremy Lee 7:08

Who was the most in touch with reality? By which I mean the person on the Clapham or the Hartlepool omnibus.

Amber Rudd 7:17

David Cameron.

Jeremy Lee 7:18

Interesting. Boris not yet featuring. How do you think history will judge them all?

Amber Rudd 7:27

I think it will be kindest of all to Theresa May, because she is viewed by most people to have behaved with honour and to have done her best, even though she didn't really pull off the thing that she had to do most of all, which was to get a Brexit deal through Parliament post-Brexit. But I think that there are many things that people still admire her for, and I've noticed that since that period people speak of her more warmly. David Cameron, I think that I'm afraid it's all about Brexit in the end, really. If you like Brexit, you blame David Cameron for the chaos that followed because he hadn't prepared for the Brexit choice, and he resigned, which a lot of people resented, even the Brexiteers. And the remainers just find it evidently infuriating that the Conservative Party delivered this damaging change on the country.

Jeremy Lee 8:26

I went to see Cameron shortly after he stepped down. It was very, very weird, very memorable meeting. I thanked him for seeing me. I mean, this was about 10 days afterwards. And he said, he said, no problem. He said, all I have to do today is take my daughter to Pony Club. And less than two weeks after being a statesman on the world stage, that must have felt very, very odd. But he told me, among many other things, that he intended to remain as MP for Whitney, I think. And then, of course, we all know shortly afterwards he changed his mind. That is to say, if he was telling me the truth at the time. And I understood him stepping down from Parliament altogether because I think his role would have been almost impossible. But given you were and I don't know, presumably are still a fervent remainer, do you think he did the right thing?

Amber Rudd 9:30

Yeah, I think he couldn't do anything else except resign as Prime Minister. And I think that the chaos that followed showed that the party wasn't ready to do what the majority, I think, would have wanted, which is a kind of soft compromise Brexit somehow down the middle, which is what David Cameron would have tried to do. And when Theresa May tried to do something sort of slightly akin to that, they just took her out until Boris was brought in to you know threaten uh leaving without a deal and in the end do a deal which he had to renege on quite soon afterwards. So I think the party was almost ungovernable. And if he had come in and if he had stayed in and tried to do that, they would have taken him out. So he was right to go. And also he couldn't have convincingly said this is a good Brexit because he knew that Brexit was going to be bad for the country.

Jeremy Lee 10:24

Quite. Do you know? I remember you and I having lunch shortly after. Well, in fact, I think it was the day after the Supreme Court announced that Johnson's prorogation of Parliament was unlawful.

Speaker 2 10:38

Yeah.

Jeremy Lee 10:39

And was it 11-0? I can't remember the I know I know it was a, you know, all the Supreme Court. Yeah. But you and I were telling one another how we'd both punch the air when we'd heard that result. But it made bugger all difference. Nice memories, in a way. So look, I mean, this leads us naturally to where we are now and where the Tory party is now. I should tell our listener, possibly who knows, listeners by now, that we're talking in the middle, effectively, of the Tory party conference, where there was a photograph, I'm sure you saw it, of Mel Stride talking to the conference. And not only was the size of the conference room astonishing, i.e., it was so much smaller than it used to be. I mean, the nice press is saying half, well, nice to the Tories press, are saying half empty. Honestly, it looked about a quarter full to me. What goes through your mind when you see that kind of thing? Are you sad at the direction it's taken? Or would you like to be there?

Amber Rudd 11:45

Would you like to be a smaller room?

Jeremy Lee 11:47

Well, yeah, they already had a smaller room. They need a smaller room. So it's like the old gag about, you know, the Liberal Party as was, moving around in a single taxi.

Amber Rudd 11:55

Yeah. I mean, the party has tacked to the right, it is following reform. Melstride is great, decent man, trying to kind of hold the line, but you know, it's not the same party that I was part of from 2010 as a member of parliament till 2019. And I think they're making a mistake, tacking to the right like that. There's no place for the centre-right anymore, and it's extraordinary. A lot of people voted Labour in the hope that they were going to get sort of centre-left. Not happening. Very disappointing. They can see that. Businesses again, they can see they're being hit harder, they're not getting the growth. Lib Dems have tacked to the left, conservatives are tacking to the right. Where is the centre right? And there is nobody there. So I think the Conservatives are making a mistake tacking there, but I can see the temptation because reform is doing so well. It'll be interesting to see how they go forward, whether there's going to be more resignations going, more sort of switching going to reform. I think it's a great shame.

Jeremy Lee 13:00

And lots of us in that sort of centrist area. Lots of us are wondering what kind of deal Jenric, and I am imagining it will be Generic, makes with Farage at some stage before the next election. What would that deal look like?

Amber Rudd 13:18

I mean, who has the advantage here? Reform. So if Generic should become the leader, then the terms will be dictated by reform if they do a merger. But I just don't know whether that will take place. The polls are very volatile, let's face it. And Nigel Farage has been quite clear that he's not rushing over to get conservatives to join. So I think there's still a lot more to play for. I mean, on the far right of the conservatives, in which I would now put Robert Jenrich, there's not much between him and Nigel Farage, except that Nigel Farage has a slightly unhinged side to him. This, you know, the populist thing about, oh, is the paracetamol safe? Who knows? Or, you know, who's eating the swans? We may get more of that stuff. I don't think you'd hear that from a conservative.

Jeremy Lee 14:12

Although what we did hear yesterday is that parts of Birmingham are all black. I think that's a direct quotation. It's not that far from what Farage might say about people in the same railway compartment or people in other parts of the country. They're dangerously close together.

Speaker 2 14:34

I agree.

Jeremy Lee 14:35

But when we talk about a possible deal, it's not necessarily a merger, is it? It's a sort of non-aggression pact or something like that.

Amber Rudd 14:42

Well, you know, in the end it comes down to who's standing against who in the general election. Because, of course, in 2019, Nigel Farage pulled his people against Boris Johnson Conservatives. And I gather that Nigel Farage was furious for Boris for not acknowledging that. But that is one of the reasons for his success, Boris Johnson, in 2019. UKIP didn't stand. I mean, UKIP they call that, or Brexit then. They hardly stood. They stood in a few places, but they didn't stand in many places.

Jeremy Lee 15:13

They're not going to do that again, are they? They're going to stand in.

Amber Rudd 15:16

I doubt it. I doubt it. But I don't know, Jeremy. I mean, there may, when it comes to it, there may be some sort of non non-aggression pact. But I don't see why Nigel Farage would do that when he's doing so well.

Jeremy Lee 15:27

Yeah. Let's pull back from what many of us would call a crisis. I don't know whether it's featuring on your crisis room podcast, but we'll come to that in a moment. Let's talk about this vacuum. I mean, I would characterize it as a vacuum in the centre, not just the centre right, although it's a very difficult distinction to make. What chances of a new party? Is there the will?

Amber Rudd 15:50

Very interesting. And it's the first time I've thought about it like this, where it's not just the centre right. Because you're right. Because the centre-left, of which, you know, there is so much akin at the centre-right, let's face it. The centre-left is in a way Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves. There's stuff they want to do, like cut welfare, tougher borders, and their party won't let them at the moment. And I find that really interesting. I mean, when I was Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, I would go into the House of Commons and make statements about plans to reduce the welfare bill. And Labour MPs would ask me how many people it would kill. And it was brutal. And those are the same MPs, a lot of them. They're not going to let Labour cut back on some of those benefits. So even though the leadership is in the centre, I just don't think the MPs and the members are. And it's like when Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, at her conference proposed ways of tightening the border to stop illegal migrants. And by the way, I think Shibana is very good. She said to her conference, obviously made up of Labour Party members, you're not going to like this. And they sat there and listened to her in silence. So I think it is interesting what you said. It's the centre overall which is empty. I don't know about a new party. I mean, I think that we've always said in the UK that you can't start a new party because a first past the post makes it so hard. If you had proportional representation, then I think there's sufficient momentum behind a centre that a new party might make sense. But under fast past the post, it's, you know, it's so hard.

Jeremy Lee 17:29

But but but things have changed.

Amber Rudd 17:31

Yeah.

Jeremy Lee 17:32

First of all, the whole sort of party political firmament has fragmented, you know, in the sense that the Greens have found their redistributive voice and found, to use that overused word, a charismatic leader who the media have fallen for fairly big time. Secondly, although it kind of makes me laugh to think about it, Corbyn might yet emerge with something. And then there's Labour, and then there's Tories, and then there's reform. That's much more fragmented than it used to be. And it could all, you know, in first past the post, it could all disintegrate and we're left with big parties. Or it might not. And the other thing is, I'm in Middle England. You know, I live in Suffolk now. And I'm meeting people every day, every day, who are talking about backing reform. These are not extremists. And they're thinking for the same reason, I suppose, that they thought last year, where else do we go? But they're also thinking, you know, the other overused phrase at the moment, the Overton window, it's now publicly acceptable and deemed right to talk in fairly blunt terms about migration and numbers. And they are moving towards a position which they have been persuaded is the right position, ignorant or willing to ignore the fact that that lot have no experience in government, they don't have strength in depth, and their ideas from the European Convention downwards and across are not just unproven, but almost certainly not deliverable. My point is that I'm not sure at the moment that Middle England actually cares about that. I don't think they care that they've got no experience and that a lot of it is undeliverable. And so I would argue they're up for grabs. That's the point I'm making.

Amber Rudd 19:37

Yeah. I think you have a point. I mean, I think that the reason why a lot of people are uh seduced by reform is because it is none of the above. The Conservatives disgraced themselves under Boris Johnson, there's Liz Trust, and couldn't recover under Rishi and have not made an apology for it. And people know that it was bad government, to be frank. And therefore want to punish the Conservatives. And the Conservatives have lost their ability to say we are the party of fiscal discipline and business. Didn't look like it, didn't feel like it, a lot of people say. And Labour are failing. And so where else they go? So you're right, maybe a centre-right party would have a shot. Quite a big call for somebody to try to do. It's not for me.

Jeremy Lee 20:21

Well, you've made that clear, Minister. You've made that very clear. I wonder whether it's for David Gork, but maybe we should move on. Okay, let's do the crisis thing. Because the Crisis Room, your new podcast, with the immensely authoritative Mark Urban. I think he's ex. I'll say ex anyway, ex Newsnight. Yes. Um, BBC diplomatic editor, I think, but I'm not sure, maybe not. And a former CIA officer whose name I can't pronounce. What's it all about? The press says it's about unpicking the biggest crises facing the UK and the world. Tell us what it's about, and tell us importantly, what a couple of these crises are.

Amber Rudd 21:05

Thank you, Jeremy. So, yeah, we have the it was Mark's idea, Mark Urban, and he had the idea that if we had a journalist, an intelligence officer, and a politician, the three of us discussing a crisis, we would have something new for people, listeners to see how Cobra works, what the priorities are, where the intelligence information comes from, where the risks are. And we thought that we would be different by doing that. And we launched about, I think we launched at the end of May. And it's been surprisingly, for us, you know, we didn't know what we were going into, it's been surprisingly successful and been quite well received. So we really enjoy it, and we have a sort of pre-meeting before each one to work out what the latest crisis is. Sometimes we have guests, guests who help us sort of analyze what's going on, and we always draw on our own particular experience. So Mark Polymeropoulos, who I call Mark P, uh, gives us the view from the intelligence scene. And, you know, it's great because he was, you know, he was very deep with the CEA. And he says, well, you know, the intelligence is this, and what they'll be thinking is that, and then the security room will be doing that, and so all that kind of stuff envisages, allows you to envisage it a bit more than just a report. So we're not just reporting, we're giving our particular different insight. And so last week we covered a horrific Manchester attack on the synagogue, and we got a very good response to that because you know, people want to know when the government says, we called Cobra. So I say, well, this is what happens at Cobra, and this is where it takes place, and this is why you do it. This is what they mean when they say the threat level hasn't changed. If the threat level hasn't changed, it basically means they don't think there is a further threat about. So even though they said they had arrested other people at the time, those people are not a danger to the public. So all that I think was quite interesting. And this week we haven't quite decided. I think that I'm quite keen to look at France, because France has lost its prime minister again and has its own sort of growing problems. And maybe we should just think, look over the hill, see what might happen in France if they don't get another prime minister where there's an election coming. I'm also quite interested in doing the crisis in politics. Everywhere there's a crisis in politics. You know, everybody always says to me, Well, what's happened to the big beasts of politics? And I say to them, well, why don't you go into politics? Flattering their ego perhaps a little bit. And the fact is, nobody really goes into politics anymore because they're they're unnerved, they can see it's not very well paid and it's slightly dangerous, literally and metaphorically. So I think there is a bit of a crisis there of getting good people into politics.

Jeremy Lee 23:40

Are you because of the format and the weekly need to produce content? I mean, is there any danger at all of you dealing with something as a crisis which might not actually be one because you've got to have a crisis every week?

Amber Rudd 23:56

Absolutely not. It's the opposite problem, Jeremy. There's already so many crises, we don't know which one to tackle. I mean, particularly at the moment, with, you know, if Israel hasn't bombed Iran again, or Russia hasn't made another incursion into Ukraine, or Trump hasn't done something absolutely outrageous. So there's plenty of opportunities to uh look at different crises internationally.

Jeremy Lee 24:19

One of those crises may be, or way of describing a sort of umbrella term, is freedom of speech and protest. It is, of course, debatable whether that really does constitute a crisis. But from where I'm standing, it might be. Okay, first question. Would you have proscribed Palestine action?

Amber Rudd 24:44

Oh, that that is one we did we looked a bit at that, not directly at that. I think it's a really difficult decision that the Home Secretary, then Evette Cooper, made, because she absolutely has the right to prescribe it, because the legislation says if you think a group is dangerous and is a political protest, then the Home Secretary can prescribe it. But I I think it's difficult to know whether it was wise to do so because so many people are kind of sitting around holding up Palestine action notices and therefore having to be arrested. So I don't know. I mean, I think on balance, the Home Secretary is the voice of the security of the nation. And the Home Secretary therefore has to be the one who is not really a liberal saying, on the one hand, on the other hand, the Home Secretary has to say, we are prescribing this, this is not acceptable, and not really allow too much room for debate about things. So there's an inevitability about a Home Secretary needing to do it. Otherwise, you've got other political parties saying, Why aren't you doing this? You're not doing it, you're a bit weak. So I think I would have done it, but I can see that she's got a certain amount of problems for the new Home Secretary, which are continuing to arise. But I think they're dealing with them. They just seem to be, you know, arresting and releasing people supporting it.

Jeremy Lee 26:08

Although I appreciate that it was brought in by a different Home Secretary. In your experience, would they have played out what might happen if an awful lot of people start coming out in support of Palestine action? Would they have thought, well, okay, we might end up arresting 5,000 people, including nuns and vicars and whoever else, who clearly aren't terrorists.

Amber Rudd 26:37

But you can not you can be a non-terrorist and support Hamas and you're expected to be arrested. If you support a prescribed group.

Jeremy Lee 26:45

So they would have thought about it, yeah, but although very difficult, they probably made the right decision. How about what's going on in in universities? Because I heard somebody infinitely brighter than I am quite a long time ago, probably about a year ago, talk about how universities should be, and he meant intellectually, definitely not physically, they should be intellectually unsafe places.

Speaker 2 27:10

Yeah.

Jeremy Lee 27:12

You know, in our day, well, we're more or less the same age. Obviously, it goes without saying that you're younger than I am, but we're not that far apart. In my day, and probably our day, you might remember David Irving doing the rounds.

Speaker 2 27:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jeremy Lee 27:25

And great debates about whether or not he should be given a platform. Um, my student Rag ran the asinine headline. God knows why I remember it. I mean, it really is a dreadful headline of paragon or psychopath. Um and tragically, the person who wrote that is probably, as we speak, working somewhere in the media.

Amber Rudd 27:48

Did you go and listen to him?

Jeremy Lee 27:50

Yes, I did actually. Yes, I did. And I wasn't persuaded, but I wasn't made angry either.

Amber Rudd 27:57

You might remember Nick Griffin being on Question Time.

Jeremy Lee 28:00

I do, yes, I do. And that offended me. And I had to try and make my mind up about whether having him on would end up with him being hoist by his own petard. And I think that is from memory, that is what happened.

Amber Rudd 28:16

It is. That is the example of it, it was very controversial at the time. Should the BBC allow Nick Griffin, who, as we know, was the leader of the BMP, on question time. And don't forget, the BMP did have counsellors, you know. And should they be allowed, and you know, most people we knew disapproved of BMP. I mean, they had some really objectionable policies. But in the end, they decided to give him a platform on question time, and he was absolutely monstered and could not handle it. And the BMP died shortly afterwards, and it must have been connected. So that is an example of give it the airing because you can defeat it intellectually for objectionable policies. I uh on that side, and I think that this universities have gone through a period of being ridiculously woke and not wanting to listen to other people's views. And I think that's a terrible mistake.

Jeremy Lee 29:11

But also, I would contend, massively over-reported on.

Amber Rudd 29:17

Yes. Well, mind you, you know, don't you, that I went down, I think in 2019 or 20, no, 2020 or 2021, I can't remember. I went down to Oxford, I was invited by not the union, but one of their debate, one of their societies, UN Women. It was UN Women in Oxford. Will you come down and talk us about your political career? Yeah, I'd love to, no problem. Turn up, they've decided to cancel me. So I go all that way with the dog and my boyfriend, and we're waiting there, and the whole room's empty. And a message comes through that they said, we didn't realise you were racist. And I'm like, I can tell you what I thought about that. So I I took a picture of myself in the empty chamber and sent it to the editor of the Daily Mail, who uh ran an article on what he thought about the Oxford students, and I told them what him what I thought. And I think that was a great mistake, really, because as I said afterwards, I would have answered any of their questions, I wasn't expecting any favourite treatment, it was just rude apart from anything else. And that to me was an example of the absurdity of taking their sort of views and not listening to other people.

Jeremy Lee 30:23

I agree, and I think that was a genuine story. I think that's the first time in my entire life I've agreed with a decision the Daily Mail have made. But um we still go back to the idea that student politics is having a lot of publicity at the moment.

Amber Rudd 30:41

Yeah, to move people's extremes.

Jeremy Lee 30:43

And so I guess we have to take it slightly seriously. That sounded patronizing, it really wasn't meant to be. I guess the point I'm making is if you were home secretary now, would you be looking at trying to curb or contain some of these meetings and protests? There are protests today on the anniversary of the Hamas attack in Israel. I get what's happened, and I personally believe it's right to say, why'd you have to march on this day of all days? That seems to me to be a mature political response. But would you have thought about increasing your powers? Would you have thought about banning this or that, or is freedom to congregate and freedom of speech paramount?

Amber Rudd 31:34

So I think that today, October the 7th, two years on, from the horrific massacres by Hamas is extraordinary that people want to protest. But it's also it is the nature of kind of students sometimes that they are completely untethered by any sort of discipline or norms. A few of them, not all of them, I don't want to malign all of them, but I was hearing today about one of the universities that was doing a protest, and a hundred people had turned up, and it was organized by the Revolutionary Communist Students Brigade.

Jeremy Lee 32:14

That's a big crowd for them.

Amber Rudd 32:16

That's a big crowd for them. And I just thought, well, I mean, you know, there are unpleasant crazy people, and there's always a disproportionate amount at the universities. And it does get too much coverage, I agree. The only thing that's that the new home secretary has done, which I do think is a good idea, is to allow the police to have a judgment on whether they have to allow the same campaign march to go on week after week after week. So that if there have been one, two, three, four, and cumulatively there have been various incidents, the police can look at it as overall, as the four marches this has happened, rather than each one. And I think that does make sense because if you're the people in London, the cumulative effect is the one you're feeling, not the individual one.

Jeremy Lee 33:01

Yeah, no, I get that. Now, look, we've got to wrap up soon, but I want to pose three questions at you. And they all begin with what would you do if?

Speaker 2 33:13

Okay.

Jeremy Lee 33:14

So we've just had what would you do if you were currently home secretary. What would you do if you were on the Nobel Peace Prize committee?

Amber Rudd 33:25

I would not be putting my hand up to support the winner being Donald Trump. Unfortunately, he increases temperatures and hate at home and around the world. So I'm not convinced that he would be a worthy winner.

Jeremy Lee 33:44

Do you think this is a supplementary question? Do you think it might happen then?

Amber Rudd 33:48

No, I don't think so. I think too many people would agree with her. I'd be very surprised if he does. He only gets what he wants by browbeating people. If you can browbeat the committee of the Nobel Peace Prize army, what is left? There must be some independence.

Jeremy Lee 34:04

Okay, this is listener, my last question. So hold off from the kettle. You know why I'm asking you this question. But our listener might not immediately no, I think everybody would know. You were MP for Hastings and Rye. Yes. What would you do if you were tasked with renewing or reimagining the British seaside?

Amber Rudd 34:29

My answer is that one of the problems we have in Hastings and other coastal towns have the same problem, is they have car parks right on the beach, practically. And that's a kind of legacy from the 60s and 70s. And it's such a shame. I think I would invest in underground car parks so that the cars are invisible and people can access the beach, the shops, the leisure facilities, etc., without these huge car parks all the way down.

Jeremy Lee 34:57

I want more than that. And whilst you're thinking about it, I should tell our listener that I've been to Hastings. I went to Hastings with my parents, and my cousin used to live there. And I don't know. Well, but I did take a ride on the delightful little children's railway.

Amber Rudd 35:13

Oh, yeah, with your knees up by your shoulders.

Jeremy Lee 35:16

Yeah, I'm ashort. But yeah, okay, it's still a squeeze. So it's still very much worth a visit and fabulous fish and seafood and whatever. But what else would you do apart from moving the car park?

Amber Rudd 35:28

What else would I do? Oh no, I I think it's otherwise it's pretty lovely seaside. What have you got in mind, Jeremy? There's clearly something I'm missing.

Jeremy Lee 35:37

Come on, they need rejuvenating, don't they? I'm not talking about Hastings necessarily. I'm talking about a lot of seaside towns.

Amber Rudd 35:45

Yeah, but that's not just the seaside, that's kind of the economy of the whole town.

Jeremy Lee 35:49

Yeah.

Amber Rudd 35:49

That is quite a sticky problem because you know they've had problems, British seaside towns, for many years. Well, one of the things is to have better transport links. If you have better transport links to London, you have more sort of liquidity in terms of people being able to work in London or London people being able to come on visits to Hastings. So making them more accessible with transport could be helpful. But like Brighton, Brighton is much, much more prosperous, much easier to enjoy than Hastings, where you have to kind of live there rather than going on occasional day visits. So I think I would try and improve the transport links.

Jeremy Lee 36:26

When was the last time you went on holiday to a British seaside town?

Amber Rudd 36:32

Yeah, no, not really. I mean, like you, I spent a lot of time in Suffolk. So I have the joys of Suffolk and the Suffolk coast for my weekends, but otherwise I I would also go overseas, yeah.

Jeremy Lee 36:45

Wouldn't it be lovely, City, in a slightly sort of misty-eyed way, if rather than cope with all the dreadful kind of business of flying anywhere, which incidentally is due to get more difficult when everywhere, including the EU, I think, insists on taking our fingerprints when we go into the country. I think from You only have to once. Okay. Yeah, well, fair enough.

Amber Rudd 37:12

I can see where you're going with this, but the and actually I think that a lot of towns do it quite well with festivals. And Hastings used to have a lot of festivals, like Bonfire Night was a big thing. So festivals can liven up the experience. And Auburgh, as we know, in Suffolk has a lot of fabulous festivals. People do go and stay in Auburn for a week or two weeks at a time because there's so much activity there. They go sailing a lot, go to sailing classes. There is that. I mean, you know, the end of the day, it's all about the weather, isn't it? People want a week away, they want to be pretty much guaranteed sun.

Jeremy Lee 37:41

What will you do, Minister, about the British weather? Come on.

Amber Rudd 37:48

Oh sorry, journalist, whoever you are. I cannot change the weather. What I can change is the the facilities at the site when you get there, so you can enjoy yourself when you're there. But the weather is up to a higher power than me.

Jeremy Lee 38:04

Do you miss being asked that kind of question?

Amber Rudd 38:09

No, I miss it. I miss some of it, to be honest. I do miss it, but I don't regret leaving. It was my time. And also, what can I say? It all fell apart after I left. We had the best time out of it, and then it was just like chaos for years.

Jeremy Lee 38:22

Yeah. I have no other way of finishing this podcast but to say, and so say most of us. Thank you, Amber. It's been a delight sharing time with you. I hope we bump into each other at the Suffolk highly recommended place in Audra.

Amber Rudd 38:37

Highly recommended.

Jeremy Lee 38:38

And do have a word with David Gork, just between us. Don't need to tell me.

Amber Rudd 38:41

Just between us. I'll I'll encourage him to do that.

Jeremy Lee 38:44

Thank you.

Amber Rudd 38:44

Thank you.

Jeremy Lee 38:45

Talk soon. Thanks, Amber.

Amber Rudd 38:47

Bye. Bye.