Simon McDonald

Interview of Lord Simon McDonald 23.6.23
AM It's a great pleasure to have a chance to talk to Simon McDonald and I always start Simon by asking when and where you were born.
SM I was born on the 9th of March 1961 in Hope Hospital in Salford which is a city next to Manchester in the north west of England.
AM I know it well, I was in the Lake District for some years so I know that area and at Sedbergh School so it was nearby. So tell me something, I ask people about their parentage a bit and they can go back, one went back to the Norman Conquest but usually they go back to their grandparents and stell me something about them so could you tell me?
SM My family couldn't go back to the Norman Conquest. I worked out as I was a teenager there was a lot of romance about the ancestry which my father's father wanted to attribute to the family but I think it just wasn't true. An unusual feature of my family is that my mother was born a McDonald and married a McDonald so all my family were McDonalds and I'm pretty sure that my father's family which was a Liverpool family had been there for a couple of hundred years that was certainly Grandy's story. He wanted it to be the case that his remote ancestor had accompanied Bonnie Prince Charlie on his English campaign and I think the prince and his Highland army got as far south as Derby and then my ancestor couldn't be bothered to go home so went across the country to the port of Liverpool. That was just one man's theory. I'm pretty sure that both sets of McDonalds were Irish and Irish Catholic so they were there. The Irishness was kind of suppressed I mean they were aspiring middle class and Irish didn't have great prestige as far as I could detect as a child but Catholic was very very important to my family's identity. My father was a religious man and was all the way to the day he died.
AM As a Catholic.
SM As a Catholic. After he died I discovered my mother was not so religious so she stopped going to church. For myself I felt the importance of religion in my education in Salford. I only went to two schools. One was St. Mary's RC primary school in Swinton and our headmaster said whenever we talk about our school we should include the letters RC and that was a really good little old-fashioned primary school and Mr. Woolf and Miss Field were the two teachers that really determined the shape of the school. They were quite academically ambitious. There was still an 11-plus. They were very proud to get people through the 11-plus and I was one of them. And then I went to De La Salle College which was the local grammar school in Weaste in Salford and it was run by De La Salle brothers so they were the...
AM Can we come back to that because you've whizzed through your childhood and parentage so fast that we'll be finished in five minutes if we go on at this speed. Going back to your parents shall we say, tell me something about their character and occupations.
SM Well my parents met in my mother's first week at Sheffield University. My parents were both the first in their families to go to university. My father went there to read medicine. In the end he failed. He took his anatomy exam two or three times and couldn't get through it. By that time he had met and wooed my mother who went to read French and at some point late in her first year I guess, maybe her second year, she discovered she was pregnant with me and so they left Sheffield University.
AM Were they married at the time?
SM No, they had just got engaged. I mean this is not the sort of conversation even a grown-up has with his parents but I'm pretty sure I was the result of wild celebrations after they got engaged and my grandfather, my mother's father, was not happy about this state of affairs and whisked them off to Lourdes in France to get married because he wanted a low-profile wedding. Well in 1960 two people from the north west going to the Pyrenees to get married was a bit more newsworthy so I think that there was more attention because they went to Lourdes to get married but they married in July 1960 and my father joined his father-in-law's funeral directing business. So for most of my life, all of my childhood, my father was a funeral director following in his father-in-law's footsteps. His own father was the chief engineer of the UK Atomic Energy Authority so his parents were rather disappointed with his life choices but they settled happily near my mother's family so that's why we grew up in Salford.
AM Did your mother have a job?
SM She was mother to five children which occupied most of her time. Eventually she did go back, she never finished her degree although French has always been her passionate interest and France has been her interest so she organized tours to France. Her father, the funeral director, had a second business, the one he really liked, which was pilgrimage travel and Catholic pilgrims in the north west of England like to go to the Holy Land a bit but that's very expensive, to Rome a bit, but they really like going to Lourdes so that was why my grandfather was able to arrange a wedding at short notice in the Pyrenees.
AM I see, fascinating. What about their characters?
SM My father, I always thought as a child growing up in a house of seven people that he was the only introvert in the house but I don't think that's fair. What he was was quiet and steady and reliable and kind all the time. He was just the loveliest person. Everybody I think genuinely liked my dad and you hear a lot of such things especially at funerals but I think he was particularly plausible with my dad but not very demonstrative, whereas my mother is a very sort of firework and fizzing personality. The noise in our childhood home was definitely started with my mum and she, I mean, one thing I puzzle about is how ambitious were they for us as their children because they didn't feel as though they were all that ambitious. They weren't very impressed if we didn't do badly, if we did badly they weren't impressed but they weren't especially pleased if we did well. But I'm the eldest of five and the four of us still living have all done very well in our chosen field whereas my first cousins and I have seven of them, not particularly well and we were a very close-knit family as children because my mother was the eldest of four and three of the four married only sons so it was sort of a self-contained unit but I still puzzle why did the four of us do better than our cousins materially speaking, professionally speaking.
AM So as a up to sort of between the age of three or four.. actually one thing I often ask is what is your first memory not of you know just sitting in your pram looking at the sky but particular memory.
SM My first particular memory is being allowed into my parents bedroom to see my new brother. So I was born March 61 he was born in June 63 so I was just over two years old and we lived in what was really a bungalow but it had a bedroom on the first floor and that was my parents bedroom, and we were never allowed into this room, and I remember that prohibition. But one day my sister who is a year younger than I we were both allowed upstairs. And I remember wanting very much to explore and not being the least interested in the pink bundle in my mother's arms, but we were required to admire the new sibling. And I went back downstairs having failed to explore and I never went back into that room, so I suppose my first memory is of some annoyance.
AM And between that age, two, and about six or so in earlyish infancy did you have any hobbies or interests that you can remember and might have shaped your life in international diplomacy?
SM Early hobbies, no. I remember very clearly my first school teacher starting school I was four years old. And Mrs. Mather was our teacher who seemed to me very very elderly, I think she was probably in her 50s, and it was just... it was all seemed very very grown up because I had two siblings at home and I was the one going off to school age four. And then age five I went with my aunt to Italy. Even all these years later my mum is a bit puzzled that she allowed this to happen because my aunt was 12 years old I was five years old and we were just sort of dispatched with a great aunt, a completely unsuitable chaperone, great aunt Agnes, for two weeks to Rome and Pescara and I thought it was just wonderful. And I think that's what triggered my interest in overseas, abroad, history all at once in a holiday which was unique, I mean it was never repeated, when I was five years old.
AM That's so useful very useful. Coming back then to your school to the second school what age did you – did you do the 11 plus?
SM I did.
AM And this was a grammar school and around, you sort of touched on it, but around 14, 15 is the time that many people in our culture are particularly religious. They're Confirmed into Church of England or whatever and they go through a spiritual phase. You said that briefly you were influenced by your parents' Catholicism and that it still meant something to you, but what does it mean, particularly as Master of Christ's?
SM Very little honestly. I owe an enormous amount to the people because the things I care about I absolutely care about, because people who have deep religious feeling passed on a care for others. You know the idea that you should make the most of yourself. That you should leave things better than you found them. This was a very important in my education. I know there are other religions that emphasize, or that it's not all about you, but my influences were Roman Catholic, and at the school just religion ran through it like "Blackpool" through Blackpool Rock. But what interests me was that they were so confident in their faith that they encouraged us to ask questions and assumed that we'd all reach the same answers they did, and as time went by it satisfied less and less. So I had my little phase of being an altar boy. I suppose I was about 14 years old but I think it was, you know, something to do before school as much as anything else. It was a group of people to hang out with. That didn't last long. I still did all the outward things as I arrived at Cambridge. I was at Pembroke as an undergraduate. and in my first year I went to Fisher House every Sunday. But one of the last speakers they had in my first year, so this must have been summer of 1980, was Basil Hume. And Basil Hume had been the Abbot of Ampleforth, and was Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, and a very considerable figure. Indeed before he died he was made an Order of Merit so he was an exceptional figure in national life and in the Catholic Church in England and he came to preach. And I'm afraid I thought he was deadly dull really unpersuading. I can't remember his sermon at all but I remember trying to listen and just thinking I just can't connect with anything you're saying, and you're the best that the Catholic Church has got. And I never went to Fisher house again, and I have never voluntarily gone to church since then. I would go for funerals and weddings and baptisms...
AM.. and you have to attend chapel
SM I do that all the time but Evensong to me doesn't feel essentially a religious... it feels more like a musical experience than a religious one
AM The other things at school are ...well the second level particularly.. are sports. Were you keen on any sport?
SM Not at all. I grew quickly in a rugby playing school, so I was forced to play rugby which I hated. I hated getting hurt, I hated getting dirty, it didn't appeal to me at all. So I was in the second team but very quickly other boys outgrew me so my services were very quickly dispensed with. I played tennis a bit at school but my eyesight went and so wearing spectacles on a tennis court isn't great. I like running, I like athletics but my school wasn't very good at that or there were no facilities. So since school I've not really done a lot of sport. But I have always enjoyed walking, so I whenever I can I walk.
AM The other thing.. well several other things happen at that time. One is some people get involved with sort of school politics, you know debating societies and things like that. Was that important at all?
SM I took part in only one debate before I became a British ambassador and that was in a school debating competition. I remember it vividly. I was terrible I read out a not very good speech too quickly, and the judges pointed this out. So we lost our first round bout. That was that. I didn't feel the need to repeat until very much later... so what else did you ask?
AM Well the other thing is music. Often at school or so on you begin to move from pop and jazz to classical music...
SM I listen to all sorts of music. I think I've got 30,000 different tracks on my iPod and I listened to a lot of pop music at school, but my dad was always... he never put much music on but in the car there would be Radio 3 in the morning he would he would listen to Radio 3 if no one else was around, and he loved Beethoven above all else. He loved Bach. Mozart was there but clearly behind the other two. So that was my introduction to classical music. But I listened to much more classical music once I got to London in my first job.
AM So it's still pretty important to you?
SM Oh yeah, I listen to music the whole time. It's one of the things that irritates my wife, that I like music on in the background and it's it's not predictable what it's going to be. It could be from the Congo, or it could be from the 18th century, or it could be an American 20th century song, but I listen all the time.
AM When you say in the background, you work to music, write to music?
SM Often, yes but the most important thing for me to work is the task, and a task and a deadline means I can work. And if there's music that's nice but not essential.
AM So you don't need music to work.
SM No.
AM We will come to your writing later but moving on now... Oh well the other thing that's often interesting is whether you had any particular teacher or teachers at that level coming up to 'A' level who really influenced you?
SM Absolutely. He was called Kevin Conroy and he was the history teacher. And I think about Kevin still regularly because lots of the things that he talked about when I was a teenager still come come back to mind. He was an inspiring teacher and he certainly put into my mind the idea that I might apply for Cambridge. And nobody in my school had even been a candidate for a decade. So Kevin did a bit of research and said the last time someone went, he went to Pembroke so I'll talk to him. And he was a lawyer and Kevin did talk to Martin Stevens, I think his name was, and he said yeah it's a good place. So I applied to read law at Pembroke..
AM Law...
SM Well you see the only two valid degrees in my neck of the woods were law and medicine and so I it was the last decision, a big decision affecting my life that I allowed my parents to take for me in effect. So I applied for law and was interviewed by a very elderly, very nice gentleman called James Campbell, and I got a an offer a two 'E's offer. I mean it was one of the happiest days in my life, it was something just so good and it and it and it was there. I mean it wasn't like a conditional offer where you had to do lots of work to secure your place. It was a two 'E's offer and it happened just before Christmas in 1978. And it was a thrill and a surprise. And Kevin was the reason I did it. And then having got to Cambridge I worked out almost immediately that I did not want to be a lawyer and thought why on earth would I study law that being the case, especially as on our first Saturday we had four hours of lectures. So on the first Monday I changed to history which I did very happily for three years.
AM Right. So we're now at Pembroke. Who were your history supervisors?
SM The ones that made the great impression were Jay Winter and Clive Trebilcock who were great, but sadly I didn't have them in my first year because I was late to the subject. I was really in the hands of the director of studies who was a man called Geoffrey Scammell and he was he was fine. But as I was starting and I mean I hadn't thought about which papers or options, he directed me to a paper supervised by his wife, Jean Scammell. And now all these years later I can say I disliked that woman more than nearly anybody I have met. She was so horrible to me and I couldn't really work out why. But she was someone who had to be endured and survived. And it was a very important lesson because it felt to me that people can be arbitrarily cruel and there is just no place for it.
AM I hope Jean is not around.

SM Well I could see her now but I'd tell her because it was her standard procedure I was told but it didn't make it any better. But then in my second year and third year there was Jay and Clive who were terrific and Mark Kaplanoff and he was a historian of the United States, and American history was one of my favourite papers. But the lecturer I most remember is David Cannadine. So he did British history of the 18th century and he was very young at that time, but of course he was a lecturer so I assumed he was at least twice my age, but he was for me the best lecturer in of history in Cambridge.
AM It's very nice you're at Christ's because it has such a famous history tradition from Jack Plumb through to a number of his illustrious students.
SM David and Linda were staying with us in the lodge this week because Linda just became an honorary doctor of Cambridge.
AM Excellent. So at that stage did you get involved in the Union or politics or anything?
SM No but I remember in the first year I joined both the Conservatives and the Labour. They were nice people that called and asked me if I would and I thought well it's why not I tried both of them out. I let the membership of both lapse after one year. The most exciting political event though of my time as an undergraduate was the formation of the SDP and I remember very vividly David Owen coming to Cambridge, and there was a mass meeting and just great approval and energy in the room. The answer of his that I most remember was about civil servant pay because already I had it in my mind that I wanted to join the Foreign Office, and he was pretty sniffy about top civil servants being paid top salaries. But apart from that it was a great event.
AM Did you know Shirley Williams?
SM I only met her towards the end of her life. She was charming and impressive and I remember in the 70's when she was something like Minister for Prices and Consumer Protection but I only met her in person when she was in her 80s.
AM So is there any other particular memory of Cambridge before we move on?
SM Well the friends I made. I mean when I was deciding what to do having left the Foreign Office, Cambridge came back because it's the whole experience was so wonderful and everything I did in the rest of my life can really had its seeds in Cambridge. I can see from this conversation actually the seeds were planted earlier but these were the saplings, these were the promising plants if you like. So it was here I decided I wanted to live abroad, to be a diplomat, to join the Foreign Office. I made friends who are still friends 40 years later and I grew up. So being part of the growing up of a next generation, helping them, answering their questions, maybe even advising, is an energising thing to do.
AM When you were beginning to think you'd like to be in the Foreign Office was there any part of the world that was already... Jay I seem to remember was a European sort of 20th century historian. Was that Jay Winter?
SM Jay Winter was a historian of the masses you know, he didn't like great men dominating thoughts, demographics and data were his big thing a little bit further further back, but no the world was my oyster I think and that was one of the appeals of the Foreign Office. I joined at age 21 I was the youngest person in my year. September the 6th 1982 was my first day. 18 of us were around the horseshoe table and after about six months we got our second year assignments, and about half of us were assigned to hard languages. I'd not really thought hard about where I wanted to go and this this process had for me in my memory two distinct phases. One was ... it wouldn't have been an email because there were no emails in the early 1980s but a minute went round and I answered it and gave a list of languages that I thought potentially interesting, and because I was working with someone who'd worked in the Middle East and enjoyed it I included Arabic as the the sixth and final slot and then I sent that off. And then over the weeks and months afterwards I thought well no I don't think Arabic is what I wanted to focus on, mainly because of family issues. I was single but I hoped to get married one day and when the personnel people asked me why I was changing my mind about Arabic I remember answering because I couldn't imagine a woman I'd want to marry agreeing to live in Saudi Arabia. They didn't clearly think this was a good enough answer because when we got our assignments mine was to learn Arabic, and not only did I learn Arabic but I was posted to Saudi Arabia. But even better I met my wife in Saudi Arabia, so it's strange how things work out.
AM So you've written a very interesting book on leadership, a sort of first tranche of your autobiography, and you describe quite a lot about your career in the Foreign Office. Can you summarize some of the things that you learned in those early years and then gradually expanded?
SM I wrote the book because I found I suddenly had nothing to do with time on my hands and there was a big chunk of time to reflect about. So 38 years in the Foreign Office and at the end I was the Permanent Secretary and head of the Diplomatic Service. So I got to the top and I wondered why. Why did it work for me and not for any of the other 17 around that horseshoe table. And I thought it was a lot to do with the people I had worked for and the example of those people, the informal mentorship really shaped my approach to the job and to the office. I thought that might be of interest to other people, both the people starting but also the people in the middle and getting towards the end. That the impact that you have on those around you can be unexpectedly large. So I was very very fortunate right from my first department, which was Western European Department, where the assistant was a man called Rob Young and the head was a man called Andrew Wood, the undersecretary was Alan Goodison and the deputy secretary was Julian Bullard, and three of those four would make most people's list of, you know, top 20 diplomats of the last 50 years. So they were very very good people to learn from. And my first posting was Saudi Arabia where my first ambassador was Patrick Wright. It was his daughter that I met in Riyadh and later married, and he was a fabulous diplomat, a lovely man, and the way he approached things, the way he solved problems, the way he got other people to help him solve problems, was learning for all my career
AM Yes, I was going to ask the rude question, whether you got to the top because you married your predecessor's daughter?
SM Yes, I think that's a perfectly fair question and in a different era the answer would have been blushingly yes. But now we have so many processes in place that I think nepotism is excluded. But the advantage as we're talking about it was as a model he couldn't be bettered. He never ever intervened in any aspect of my career, partly because he'd retired by the time his intervention might have been useful. But nepotism is not the British way.
AM One of the people you mentioned there and I remember reading in the book was Julian Bullard. I have a feeling I was taught by his mother-in-law or something. There was a one of these very important academic families in Oxford, the Master of Balliol A.L. Smith, his seven beautiful daughters. One of them, Rosalind, Lady Rosalind Clay was my teacher for many years and she used to talk about the Bullards, and I'm not quite sure what the connection...
SM Well Julian's mother was a daughter of this famous Master of Balliol, and she married Reader Bullard. Now the nicest story about I heard about Reaer Bullard is in fact rubbish. And the story was that he was called Reader because he was the only one in the family who could read not true. But he was from an extremely humble background in the East End of London and he was a scholarship boy and he dragged himself up by by passing all the exams. But Reader's father when he died left only £10 so he was from a properly poor background. He couldn't get into the diplomatic service before the First World War but he could get into the consular service, I think that's how it worked, and eventually the diplomatic service and the consular service merged, so Reader became minister in Jeddah and ambassador in Tehran, and as our man in Tehran he hosted Churchill's famous 69th birthday party where Churchill was flanked by Stalin and President Roosevelt. I think the most humble guest was Claude Auchinleck. So Reader was a British success story, an inspiring story, and two of his sons Julian and Giles went into the diplomatic service. Julian whom I knew a bit, I worked for, was a fantastic diplomat and eventually political director and then ambassador in Germany.
AM You talk in the book, I'm going to ask you one or two questions about the book, you talk in the book a lot about leadership but not so much about diplomacy, and you said this person was a fantastic diplomat. So what is a fantastic diplomat?
SM Someone who understands their own position. It's interesting how few people really understand what their side is trying to get out of a negotiation but the best diplomats do know their own bottom lines, but what the diplomat really adds is understanding the other side. Not only understanding their bottom lines, where they can compromise, but also why they have to fuss in the way they do which often puzzles British ministers, and key point, how to present our case to the other side to give it the best chance of success. Another very effective diplomat I worked for was Robert Cooper, and Robert Cooper had all sorts of success in negotiations in Brussels because of the way he made the case for Britain. One of the weird exemptions we achieved at some stage was that Bristol Cream Sherry was exempt from an extra duty because Robert persuaded the other 14 people around the table that this was an essential for widows at the funerals of their husbands, and so they decided that this sort of alcohol could be treated in a separate category, so that sort of thing. But you know how to make a case in a way that the other side can understand and accept, and agree.
There are quite a lot of freelancers and some of them absolutely work but most of them have some sort of official locus so they're not total insiders and for me a favourite example in my career was the Oslo negotiation. The Norwegians nobody's idea of central players in the Middle East peace process but they properly established the relationships with the key players they were trusted they could provide venues for very low-profile talks and Terje Rød-Larsen and Mona Yuul I think are the uber exponents of what you are talking about but it helped them all the time that they were actual diplomats even though they were from a surprising country.
AM You provide throughout your book a sort of model of what are the twenty most important things to...
SM Too many.
AM There's several lists but when I write these things in relation to, for example, the characteristic of the English gentleman which it overlaps with quite a bit, I also do the opposite. What is the character of a bad leader. What are the worst characteristics, and if you can tailor this towards one or two leaders you've met in your time...
SM It's quite easy for me to do. In the end I settle on three things which I think are absolutely essential for good leaders and the first is having a plan, knowing what you want to achieve. So a bad leader for me is someone who just likes the position. There's an American phrase to have "limo fever", you know you just like the trappings and that in the end is useless to everybody else. But it happens, I mean you know it happens right now in British politics and American politics. So if a leader cannot persuasively describe what she or he is trying to achieve in a job it's not going to be good. The second is good leaders being able to build and motivate teams, and the very worst people in leadership positions I have worked for have have shunned the possible team that could have helped them, been suspicious of the people around them. Have decided to set up informal channels outside their ministry because they just don't get what the civil servants were there for, and were incapable of using the civil service. And then alongside this inability to build a team is inability to take decisions. And this can both be because they can't make up their mind but it can also be because they're not trusting anybody to take any small decision on their behalf because there's no trust. And so the whole system silts up waiting for the leader to decide. And the third characteristic, key characteristic, is being a decent human being, caring about other people, putting other people before yourself, making sure that if you are inconveniencing someone, especially if it's not totally reasonable, there's some care that they know that you are grateful for that. That there maybe some gratitude and compensation for that. But I've worked for some leaders who just didn't give a fig, you know, the task was the task, they were at the top and everyone else had to snap to, no matter the cost.
AM Back to the question of one characteristic you need as a diplomat which is to understand the other side how do you... because diplomats get posted from .. one day they're in Saudi Arabia the next day they're in Beijing and so on. How do you tend to learn about another culture fairly quickly and understand it sufficiently to work?
SM The trap in the question is the idea that you can learn another country and culture quickly. Looking back I think actually it's quite slow. There's the sort of journalist approach of chucking yourself in, four days talking to as many people as possible, going to as many different cultural events, meeting as many people - it's bullshit, it's like a sugar rush I don't think in the end you do get to learn the place that you've landed. So in my career I served in two countries twice, in Saudi Arabia and in Germany, and the second time was much improved by the fact there was a first time. But I was quite startled in both cases to think how much I got wrong first time, how much was incomplete or misleading. That's one reason why I think it's a good idea for people to return to a country they've worked in before. .It's a good idea for people not to work in too many countries because it's just information overload.
AM If I could ask you one or two questions about their contemporary world situation, I mean the two items that many people are talking about, obviously the Ukraine crisis and American relations with China, are you optimistic, pessimistic, or in the middle on those two issues, and what is your very wild guess on what's going to be the outcome in the next few years on those matters.
SM So first Ukraine. This is the key conflict in Europe in my life, it's the key conflict I think for the West in my life. I think is very much our interest that Ukraine should win and it's crucially important that Ukraine should not lose, so the UK and its allies are doing all they can, which the rules allow, to help Ukraine defend itself is our conspicuous interest. I think British politics gets that. I think perhaps we could be a bit quicker in the supply of some of our material but I think we are in the van. In this respect however much we do it pales in significance compared with the United States. The American contribution is the single most important. It's about ten times the size of ours. America sticking with this I think is our vital interest. The problem I foresee is the presidential election at the end of next year where it is likely that the Republican candidate will be Donald Trump, and a second Trump administration may dispute the analysis I have just given and decide to throttle back. I think that would be ...that's the only thing I can see in the future which would be a complete disaster because I think if we maintain the levels of support then we will at least achieve the minimum objective which is Ukraine not losing.
AM Yes, well you came back to the minimum but you started with that Ukraine should win what do you mean by win?
SM That they would push Russia off their territory. I think it's very important that the Russian people understand and maybe senior Russian ministers and generals, this is not a dispute that ends in Moscow. This is a dispute that ends on the Ukrainian-Russian border so Russia, the territory of Russia as understood internationally, is not in dispute and will not be touched. But Russia must leave the territory of its sovereign neighbour. If it stays in any of Ukraine's territory that can only be at the end of a peace negotiation which the Ukrainians sign-off on. So what is the fate of Crimea? I'm not entirely sure what is the fate of the bits of the Donbas that were in Russian hands before the 24th of February last year, not completely clear. I think it's important for a negotiation that they are not completely clear because there has to be something to negotiate. Clearly it is most desirable from a Ukrainian point of view and I would have no problem at all if the end of a peace negotiation Russia left Crimea and left all of Donbas.
AM Right. And then second on America-China?
SM That's the Thucydides trap of the 21st century. The Chinese are clearly the rising power, the US clearly the mature power that is feeling threatened. My urging on this challenge is that the UK shouldn't make itself a player. The widespread assumption might traditionally have been that the UK would just line up with Washington. I do not think it would be sensible or necessary for us to do that. I think the United States is never going to be displaced as our main ally but that does not mean to say we will be with them in every dispute they take on. Looking back even the first 20 odd years of the 21st century the fact we were with them in Iraq and Afghanistan didn't make a material difference to the outcome and didn't help us in any way.
AM Right. You're writing a book or you've just handed it in. Congratulations. Remind me of the title.
SM 'Beyond Britannia; reshaping UK foreign policy'.
AM O.K., because at the end of your previous book you had an appendix saying what's wrong with our political system and outlining it, so this in a way is a long appendix?
SM You could look at it in that way, but the truth is that having written my first book which as most first books is largely memoir. I showed it to only three people before it went off to a publisher, my wife, my private secretary and my best friend, and my best friend said, why have you written about leadership? What you're supposed to know about is foreign policy. Why don't you write about foreign policy? So I accepted his challenge.
AM So can we get on an advance contents page so to speak?
SM The United Kingdom for quite a long chunk of time was top nation. This started really in the 18th century at the end of the Seven Years War, went through the whole of the 19th century and ended at some point in the first half of the 20th century. My thesis is that British people, particularly the ruling class, has not reconciled itself to the ending of that predominant status and this distorts foreign policy choices. This makes us focus too much on hard power which we now find it difficult/impossible to wield. So I think we need to recognize that. I do not say that we retire from the world stage. I do not say that we do not matter. But I think the way that we matter is different from the way that a significant senior group of people in this country would like.
AM You are thinking that a hoped for outcome is likely?
SM There is a general election on the horizon. I hope that everybody who might be in the foreign policy team on the other side, from whatever party, will look at it and consider the possibility that soft power is legitimate power for the United Kingdom, and that the rising, if you like, planetary agenda, is a good place for the United Kingdom to focus rather than traditional geopolitics
AM Have you seen any signs in the front bench of the Labour Party that they have a different view? They seem pretty consistent in their hatred of Russia and China as far as I can see.
SM We are more than a year from the election. One of my favourite bosses said that there's nothing so valuable as preparation time, so this is the moment to get to them. So I hope that a book published in November would would have a chance of influencing key people across the political spectrum.
AM Right. So we're just coming towards the end of the tape. Were there any questions you would have liked me to ask you which I haven't?
SM Not really I've enjoyed the conversation but I know we could keep on but not in particular
AM Sometimes people say, oh I forgot my family. You mentioned your wife. Do you have children?
SM We have four children, we have two sons and two daughters, one daughter married last year, a younger daughter is marrying this year, next month actually, and our two boys are single. They've all left home, they're all grown up. Three of them have settled work and one of them is retraining.
AM Right. And lastly perhaps Christ's. You're new Master of Christ's and have been there nearly a year. Is it more difficult, easier, or whatever?
SM I don't know if people like hearing this but it's mostly what I was expecting/hoping for because it is a very beautiful campus with very interesting, very well motivated, very smart people in all parts of the College, so the students, the staff, the fellowship and the alumni have all been very interesting to get to know. The problems that it has are healthy problems, that it's not broke but it would be better for having a bit more money because we need to become carbon neutral. Zero carbon by 2050 is a difficult task for a 500 year old college but we can do it. We need to remain excellent and for me that means remaining open, internationally and also domestically, so we have a very varied student body but not enough, in my view, comes from the unexpected bits of our country in our society.
AM Like Salford.
SM That would be one place but there is at least one person from Salford right now.
AM Let's hope there are more, so thank you very much indeed Simon, that was lovely.
SM Thank you Alan