Sir Christopher Meyer

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 30:08

The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and three, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:31

My Costaway this week is a diplomat. He's a foreign office man to his finger tips, but not apparently his ankles, which are normally dressed in his trademark red socks. He joined the diplomatic service straight from a public school and Cambridge education. He mixes ambassadorial polish with political toughness, having served as a press officer to John Major, as well as being our man in Bonn and in Washington. Having skilfully crossed the domestic divide from Tory to Labour, in America he found no difficulty in befriending first Bill Clinton and then George Bush. He emerged as a central figure in the Bush-Blair relationship and an important player in our alliance with the US in the war on terrorism.

Presenter1:10

He retired from diplomatic service earlier this year and returned home to handle another hot potato as chairman of the Press Complaints Commission.

Presenter1:18

By temperament I'm not a behind the scenes fixer, he says. I'm more inclined to shoot from the hip than not. He is Sir Christopher Mayer. Have you therefore, Christopher, been in the the wrong job all these years? I mean you're not supposed to shoot from the hip as an ambassador and diplomat, are you?

Sir Christopher Meyer1:33

Well, I found as ambassador I was required to do all kinds of things. I was required to be actually a behind the scenes man and I did it. But more and more as foreign policy was dragged screaming out of the shadows, you found that you had to be a front man as well. And when I was ambassador, particularly in Washington, I was always talking to the media, making speeches, going out on the road, selling Britain. So I think progressively, as I went up the ladder, I found that what I was doing more and more suited my temperament.

Presenter2:01

It's also probably the nature of the job changing anyway, as well as twenty percent. But of course you were very front of stage, the sort of stuff you like doing, I get the impression. When you were press officer to John Major in Downing Street, weren't you in the mid nineties? You you enjoyed that cut and thrust, didn't you?

Sir Christopher Meyer2:04

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

Sir Christopher Meyer2:16

I I loved it. I loved it. And it it was a very, very difficult time for John Major. And frankly, the period when I was press secretary there for him was a period in which his fortunes deteriorated.

Presenter2:27

We're into sleaz and bastards.

Sir Christopher Meyer2:28

Yeah, I mean as soon as I arrived in Downing Street, I was hit by sleas, and it seemed never ending. It seemed never ending.

Presenter2:34

There was an awful lot of it.

Sir Christopher Meyer2:35

There was, of course, the first thing.

Presenter2:37

Well, you called it white water rafting. There's obviously an excitement about it. But what you always understood then, it seems to me, was what spin was, really. You knew, didn't you, instinctively, about offering the press a kind of irresistible phrase, something they could latch on to. Not least because you'd written a thesis on spin before we even used the word.

Sir Christopher Meyer2:54

Pin before

Sir Christopher Meyer2:56

Well, an awful lot of tosh has been written about and spoken about spin as if it's some new black art that has been developed in the last few years and that before spin masters there were there were how can I put it sort of platonic objective unspinning press secretaries who gave you the the essence of government policy in all its purity and truth.

Presenter3:14

You think back of Bernard Ingham calling John Biffin semi-detached. Yeah, I mean, Bernard.

Sir Christopher Meyer3:18

Yeah, I mean Bernard Bernard was my mentor, to be quite honest with you. I mean, when I was Geoffrey Howe's Press Secretary and Bernard was at the height of his powers with Margaret Thatcher, when she was at the height of her powers, to go out and brief journalists with Bernard was was a lesson.

Presenter3:31

He was the inspiration for your thesis, written at Harvard on the sabbatical in the late 80s, entitled.

Sir Christopher Meyer3:34

On sabbatical in the meeting.

Sir Christopher Meyer3:36

Hacks and uh um pinstripe to peasers. I use the phrase pinstripe to peasers'cause a distinguished columnist from the Sun newspaper, now retired, said to me once, You Foreign Office blokes, you're all pinstriped to Peasers. I thought that's a good phrase there, so.

Presenter3:52

Is that why the Red Sox, is that an attempt to sort of get away from the image?

Sir Christopher Meyer3:59

Well, it is a kind of feeble bureaucrat's attempt to break out of a stereotype. But actually, actually I wear these socks on the advice of an American journalist because when I was sitting in Moscow back in the 80s and was hired then at our embassy by Jeffrey Howe to be his press secretary and I told this Washington Post journalist, I'm going to do this job, he said to me, you need a distinguishing physical characteristic, very important. And he recommended to me three things. Wear a hat, wear a brightly coloured scarf, or wear brightly coloured socks. Well, my head's too big for a hat. A scarf is very uncomfortable in the summer. And so it became socks.

Presenter4:37

Good story. Let's have your first record. What's it to be?

Sir Christopher Meyer4:40

Well, this is one of the greatest blues recordings ever made by, I think, the greatest country blues artist who ever lived, which is Robert Johnson. And I think the greatest of all the numbers he recorded was Crossroad Blues, Highway 61, where he allegedly met the devil, entered a Faustian bargain to serve the devil if the devil would give him the skill to play the guitar.

Speaker 15:05

Turn it lost roll.

Speaker 15:07

Fell down on my knees

Speaker 15:17

Yeah.

Speaker 15:20

I went to the crossroads.

Speaker 15:24

Better money.

Speaker 15:32

After all the firm numbers

Presenter5:35

Robert Johnson and Crossroad Blues, and that was recorded in 1936. So, Christopher May, you spent the last six years as our ambassador to the United States, always considered a plum posting, although you had quite an eventful period, and we'll come to that. But tell me first about the difference between life now and then. I mean, gone is the Lutyans' residence, gone is the Ambassadorial Bentley and the servants, and what a come-down.

Sir Christopher Meyer6:01

Well, it was a wonderful time. It was very nice driving around town in the Bentley.

Sir Christopher Meyer6:06

and all that kind of thing. But I can tell you after

Sir Christopher Meyer6:09

Five and a half years, and each year having come through the house between twelve and fourteen thousand guests, um having very little privacy, doing almost eighteen hours a day, seven days a week, you're having fun.

Sir Christopher Meyer6:25

Uh the pluses far outweigh the minuses, but there comes a time when you need to get back home, get back to your family and lead something close to um a normal life. Um I thoroughly enjoyed it, but all all good things have got to come to an end and it is great to be back in my home country after thirty-six years wandering around the world. I really have to say that.

Speaker 16:33

Yeah.

Presenter6:44

No.

Presenter6:46

But as I mentioned in the introduction, I mean an important part of what you did out in the States was actually to smooth the way for the Bush Blair relationship, wasn't it? And you were cultivating Bush before you was even a Presidential candidate, just for that moment, weren't you?

Sir Christopher Meyer7:01

Well, I was. I I have to say to you that any good ambassador should be doing that.

Presenter7:06

That's the job.

Sir Christopher Meyer7:06

And not just in the United States. You've got to look ahead two or three years at least and try and work out who the likely candidates are going to be in the next Presidential election and who is likely to emerge.

Presenter7:18

But the next problem would be that Blair had been so close to Clinton, I mean, and had stood by him even through the Monica Lewinsky affair and the attempted impeachment, all that

Sir Christopher Meyer7:26

Yeah.

Presenter7:27

The idea that he could make the transition from Clinton to Bush, from left to right, as it were, must have looked very uphill, no matter how good your contacts.

Sir Christopher Meyer7:36

Well, there were a lot of people who were worried about this, and so very early on I said, Is this a problem?

Sir Christopher Meyer7:41

That there has been this very close relationship between Blair and Clinton. And the answer was, by your works shall ye be known. We'll see how it goes. So they were very pragmatic about this.

Presenter7:52

But you obviously know George Bush very well. You've seen him, as we've just said, from early days and you've sat at small dinner parties with him. I think he gave you a dinner party before you left, didn't he?

Presenter8:02

You know the view from the outside that you know, and it's it's it's been much written about this week, you know, in quotes, amiable but stupid. What's your view? What's he really like?

Sir Christopher Meyer8:12

Well, I've had time to think about this since I left Washington, and I really do believe

Sir Christopher Meyer8:17

Though that is a travesty and a caricature of the man, he is by no stretch of the imagination stupid. Bush is not only amiable, personable, and I thought a very a nice man as a human being, he is smart. And too many Europeans have made too many mistakes in underestimating him.

Sir Christopher Meyer8:41

Record number two

Presenter8:41

Yeah.

Sir Christopher Meyer8:42

Yeah.

Sir Christopher Meyer8:43

Well, when I was about twelve, I discovered Radio Luxembourg, and I heard this amazing piece of music, which was Little Richard.

Sir Christopher Meyer8:52

Singing Good Golly, Miss Molly

Sir Christopher Meyer8:54

I think it must have been 1956, might have been 57, I just knocked my socks off.

Speaker 18:58

Go!

Sir Christopher Meyer8:58

Uh Uh

Speaker 18:59

Yeah.

Sir Christopher Meyer8:59

Come on.

Speaker 18:59

Ah

Speaker 19:01

Show like the ball with Dolly McMarley.

Speaker 19:07

So like the fall

Speaker 19:09

When you're marking on the ball here.

Speaker 19:12

Ain't he no mama car

Speaker 19:16

Early early morning to the early early night. When the comments marlle walking at the house of blue light, good gall and

Speaker 19:23

Uh

Presenter9:27

Little Richard and good golly, Miss Molly, and memories of uh prep school for you, Christopher Mayer, in Seaford, Sussex.

Speaker 19:32

Seaford, Sussex.

Presenter9:33

Where you were a boarder, you went age seven.

Sir Christopher Meyer9:33

Where you

Presenter9:35

It's certainly not the sort of thing you would have heard at home, all of that, is it?

Sir Christopher Meyer9:39

No, my parents used to listen to quite a lot of music, but it tended to be Mario Lanza, and my grandmother loved Dickie Valentine, Doris Day, and all those people from the pre-rock and roll era. So when you heard something like Little Richard, it was like a storm. It was unlike anything we'd ever heard before. And that's what got me into always being uh uh a fan of uh rock and roll music.

Presenter10:06

Tell me about your parents. Um you you never knew your father, did you?

Sir Christopher Meyer10:09

No, I never knew my father. He was killed in action. He was in the Royal Air Force. He was a pilot.

Sir Christopher Meyer10:15

And I think he was posted missing about a week before I was born, so when when my mother had me.

Presenter10:18

Uh

Sir Christopher Meyer10:20

I think she didn't know whether he was alive or dead.

Presenter10:22

So you lived with your mother and your grandmother?

Sir Christopher Meyer10:25

Yes, I lived with my mother and my maternal uh grandmother for the first what was it, first ten years of my life, and then my mother married again, and I went away to boarding school when I was about seven and a half.

Presenter10:37

And your mother also did something hush-hush, I think, in the war, didn't she?

Sir Christopher Meyer10:42

Well, she was she joined the Women's Royal Air Force in the war, and I think she did s what they called ciphers.

Presenter10:48

How high did you go?

Sir Christopher Meyer10:49

High did she go? Oh, she went she went oh, good God, she's going to kill me now because I can't remember. But she went very high and then met my first stepfather and and uh retired from the WRAF.

Presenter11:02

But all of that would have meant that perhaps you were closest of all to your grandma, wasn't it?

Sir Christopher Meyer11:06

Yes, it w well, it's quite hard to explain this. I was very close to her because I spent more time with her on school holidays than I did with my mother, but the very fact that I didn't see my mother so often in a curious way reinforced that attachment. So these things are never simple. They really aren't.

Presenter11:20

But it's your childhood, it is as it is. I mean peop people often look at childhoods, don't they, and say, Oh, that must have been very difficult for you, but it was the only one you knew.

Sir Christopher Meyer11:29

No, it was the only one I knew and as you you know, what you don't know about you don't you don't miss. But it I mean it was a very sort of severe gear change when when my mother married again and suddenly I had a completely different kind of uh of family life.

Presenter11:32

Two.

Presenter11:41

Public school followed. You went to Lansing, uh and then you went to Peterhouse, Cambridge, to read history. When did you decide that the FO, the Diplomatic Service, was for you?

Sir Christopher Meyer11:49

Well, I had this strange premonition which came from my grandmother. My grandmother used to go to a spiritualist church, and I remember one day when I was about 15 or 16, she came back and said to me, I have been communing with your father, which she used to do quite often, she said, and he has said to me that Christopher will be a wanderer on the face of the earth. And maybe this sort of lodged in my subconscious. I don't know.

Presenter12:14

Anyway, you were going to wander the face of the earth as we should here. But let's pause for record number three.

Sir Christopher Meyer12:16

Especially here.

Sir Christopher Meyer12:18

Well, when I was at school when I was at Lansing at public school, I used to go to

Sir Christopher Meyer12:23

I suppose a music appreciation class. And I thought the writer I respond to all music emotionally, not intellectually. And I thought the writer's spring so exciting that on my desert island I would at least that night have part of it to wake me up in the morning.

Presenter13:38

The Dance of the Earth from the end of the first part of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, played by the Kirov Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev. So you rose through the ranks, Christopher Mayer, from West Africa, via Moscow, Madrid, Brussels, Bonn and Washington, as we've heard. How many languages do you speak, in fact?

Sir Christopher Meyer13:55

I speak quite a lot of languages, but none of them terribly well basically Spanish, French, Russian, and German.

Presenter14:00

Mm.

Sir Christopher Meyer14:01

And a bit of English as well in there, I suppose.

Presenter14:02

And and then of course there's the uh the language of diplomacy, which is a particular skill, isn't it?

Sir Christopher Meyer14:08

Well I'm you know this is interesting this because you see

Sir Christopher Meyer14:12

On the outside people think that the profession of diplomacy is some kind of arcane, discreet thing which to which normal mortals are not admitted. Anybody who's got good interpersonal skills can speak one or two languages, who is adaptable, intellectually nimble,

Speaker 114:21

The fake

Sir Christopher Meyer14:29

Extrovert and can write clearly and concisely, as well as speak like that, can be a diplomat.

Presenter14:35

And even if you blow up from time to time, you don't you don't have to also ha be entirely temperate.

Sir Christopher Meyer14:42

No, you shouldn't be entirely temperate. My goodness me, you there's

Sir Christopher Meyer14:45

There's a time for being temperate and a time for blowing up.

Presenter14:48

What's the biggest blow up you've ever had in your career?

Sir Christopher Meyer14:50

I think the most recent blow-up was when I was in Washington as ambassador, and just at the moment when we were sending 5,000 Marines to Afghanistan, the Americans slapped 100% tariffs on some British steel exports, now declared illegal by the World Trade Organization. And it made me so cross, because I thought this was an outrage, and we're still living with the consequences.

Presenter15:13

Yeah.

Presenter15:14

But y despite all of that, and despite the blowing up, I mean, at the end of the day, you know, the diplomat's in there for the long haul. You've inevitably got to keep something back, haven't you? You can't go native with your political masters.

Sir Christopher Meyer15:27

No, well you can't. I mean it's quite difficult. If you're going to pursue this career for a lifetime, you have got to be able to serve whichever political master comes into power. And if you don't like it, then you should resign and and and get out.

Presenter15:40

There's a line that's been written about you that when you were serving John Major as a press officer, that even when you were giving the line to the lobby, there was a twinkle in your eye because

Sir Christopher Meyer15:50

Yeah.

Sir Christopher Meyer15:51

The trigger eye has been interpreted as suggesting that I didn't believe what I was saying. Now.

Presenter15:58

Well, you can't always believe what you're saying. No. As you say, you've got to suspend your own political views.

Sir Christopher Meyer15:59

No, you say you

Sir Christopher Meyer16:01

Yes, but on the other hand, you must be as convincing as you possibly can be.

Presenter16:06

Of course, but you must have been compromised. I mean, do you think it's possible for the press officer in Downing Street to be a civil servant? He can't.

Sir Christopher Meyer16:12

It's a really good question, that. And I think when I left Downing Street in 1996, I remember saying to John Major and to others afterwards, as Secretary of the Cabinet, that I didn't think a civil servant any longer could be the government spokesman and the Prime Minister's press secretary. A lot of accusations have been thrown first at Bernard Ingham when he worked for Margaret Thatcher and then against Alastair Campbell when he was with Tony Blair for politicising the press office. But it's damn difficult to do that job well unless you have some kind of political angle. So I think.

Presenter16:45

Well, it's a perfectly simple solution, isn't it? You just make it a political appointment. You don't call them civil servant and we don't pay for them.

Sir Christopher Meyer16:49

Let me

Sir Christopher Meyer16:51

A lot of people think that that is not the way to go, but but I I actually think that that probably that is and uh um it's it's a controversial p point of view, but that was my experience.

Presenter17:02

I got number four.

Sir Christopher Meyer17:03

I first went to Moscow to the Embassy in 1968 and I didn't know much about ballet or opera then and in those days, depths of Cold War, there weren't many things to do in Moscow, but one of the great things to do was to go to the Balshoi Theatre and see ballet and listen to opera. And I went to see Yevgeny and Yegin and I can remember sitting there and tears were coursing down my cheeks.

Speaker 117:31

Have such wisdom.

Speaker 117:38

But holy lost remoip.

Speaker 117:46

You live all your death on one's your beloved.

Speaker 117:56

Demi is not prefodit, just a cringe one way Los Abor.

Speaker 118:13

What was love yen each?

Presenter18:27

That was Stuart Burrows singing Lenski's Aria just before he dies in the duel from Act Two of Tchaikovsky's Eugene On Yegin. I think it's Where Were the Golden Days of My Youth or something. With the Royal Opera House Orchestra conducted by Sir George Schulte. So you went, Christopher, to the States as our ambassador in 1997. You were to weather a lot of storms that would directly affect the transatlantic relationship. I mean, Monica Lewinsky, we've mentioned the attempted impeachment. September the 11th, of course, and then the war on terrorism first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq. Of course, there was.

Presenter19:01

Quite properly, in the wake of that, so much international good will towards America came in its wake.

Presenter19:09

What went wrong, then, it's all been squandered, hasn't it?

Sir Christopher Meyer19:12

Well, the historian this is one of the things that the historians are really will really think about, but one of the great strategic failures was

Sir Christopher Meyer19:20

America's Loss

Sir Christopher Meyer19:23

of almost all the sympathy.

Sir Christopher Meyer19:26

that it had received from around the world.

Sir Christopher Meyer19:28

Um for 9-11 in the ensuing months.

Presenter19:32

It has to be a failure of diplomacy on their part, if not on the other side.

Sir Christopher Meyer19:34

Well, everybody's diplomacy failed, I think, quite badly. And I mean, it was a very difficult situation over the next 18 months. I think in the end, all kinds of things went wrong in the end. I think once

Sir Christopher Meyer19:47

There had been a decision to go through the United Nations as far as it could be taken, which was the right thing to do.

Sir Christopher Meyer19:55

And one of Blair's achievements was to persuade Bush that this was the right thing to do. But with hindsight now, you look back.

Speaker 120:01

Good.

Sir Christopher Meyer20:01

And you can see that a UN timetable involving inspectors could not be made.

Sir Christopher Meyer20:08

to synchronize with a military timetable

Sir Christopher Meyer20:11

preference of which was to go to war in the spring. There were clearly members of his administration who were determined to go to war as soon as possible. And I remember having a conversation with somebody pretty, pretty senior in the White House towards the end of the last year. And it was clearly the hope

Sir Christopher Meyer20:28

That the pressure of the military and diplomatic build-up would lead to some kind of implosion in Baghdad.

Sir Christopher Meyer20:36

a bullet in the back of the neck of Saddam Hussein by one of his generals, that would have transformed the situation in a way that would have enabled everybody to avoid a war.

Presenter20:46

That was a hope, was it?

Sir Christopher Meyer20:47

But it didn't happen.

Presenter20:48

And of course the other part of that charge is that because of the closeness of the relationship between Blair and Bush, which, as we've heard, you helped foster, that Blair had to go along and Blair is Bush's poodle.

Sir Christopher Meyer21:01

That was always a bum rap against Tony Blair. Tony Blair, if you like, was always a true believer on the need to confront Saddam Hussein. So the notion that, if you like, that Blair was dragged along in George Bush's wake

Sir Christopher Meyer21:16

is false.

Sir Christopher Meyer21:17

It was far more two leaders working together to deal with somebody and a regime that they thought was too dangerous to be allowed to continue in the way it was.

Presenter21:30

But having done that and having put their shoulders together, that's the situation you have. Those are the kinds of charges you get. And in a way, those charges are reinforced. I mean, could could Tony Blair have said to Bush, don't come, George, I'd rather you not. You're going to compromise me even more.

Sir Christopher Meyer21:45

I would be astonished if Blair for a moment ever gave that serious consideration or if ever Bush gave that serious consideration. Because let us say one side or the other said, well, let's postpone this visit until more clement times. I mean, what a defeat. What a moral defeat for fear of demonstrations or political embarrassment that the visit should be postponed, I think is the last option in the White House and Downing Street.

Presenter22:14

Echo number five.

Sir Christopher Meyer22:16

When I was at school, at at my public school Lansing, and I was being taught about Stravinsky and syncopation,

Sir Christopher Meyer22:24

I couldn't understand.

Sir Christopher Meyer22:26

what syncopation was. It was explained to me theoretically in God knows how many ways, and finally the the music teacher said, Look.

Sir Christopher Meyer22:32

I'm going to bring you a jazz record next time, and then you will understand syncopation. And he came in with a long-playing record, as we used to say in those days, of Jelly Roll Morton and the Red Hot Peppers. A wonderful set of classics of jazz recorded in the 1920s. And this was the start of my getting interested in jazz. And I'd like to hear Dr. Jazz from Jelly Roll Morton and the Red Hot Peppers.

Speaker 123:54

Hannah Central Give me Dr. James!

Presenter24:01

That's a nineteen twenty six recording from Jelly Roll Morton and the Red Hot Peppers of Doctor Jazz. So back on the personal front, Christopher, I mean, if we were looking for again for proof of your impulsiveness as opposed to the sort of

Speaker 124:13

Yeah.

Presenter24:14

Urbanity and unflappability of the ambassador, the diplomat. One might look at the story of how you met your second wife, Catherine.

Sir Christopher Meyer24:21

Um

Presenter24:22

Seven years ago, when you were in Bonn?

Sir Christopher Meyer24:24

When I was in Bonn in in 1997 I was uh already separated uh from my first wife and I was determined to pursue a kind of monk-like career in Germany.

Presenter24:25

Not the night.

Sir Christopher Meyer24:37

as the ambassador. Then one day um this lady called Catherine Lyle, which was my wife's maiden name um asked to come and see me, seeking my help.

Sir Christopher Meyer24:48

in a situation where her then estranged German husband had abducted their two children in in violation of a custody order. I've got to I've got to make this confession. She had sent me her book, and I looked at the pictures in the book and I saw that she was a

Sir Christopher Meyer25:04

Very good-looking woman, so I thought I really do want to meet her. And but I did say to my private secretary after half an hour, come in and interrupt, because you know we don't want this to go on too long.

Sir Christopher Meyer25:14

And he came in after half an hour, and I said, I said, John, I haven't finished yet. Would you kindly go?

Sir Christopher Meyer25:24

And we and we talk for an hour.

Presenter25:25

So you were already plotting?

Sir Christopher Meyer25:27

Well, I was going to be a relationship. No, no, no, no, it wasn't. It's never you know, it's never linear like that, really. But what it all what it all came down to in the end was I found, much to my chagrin,

Presenter25:27

There was going to be a relationship

Sir Christopher Meyer25:40

There there was very little practical that I could do to help her, so I did the next best thing, which was to marry her.

Presenter25:46

It's a wonderfully romantic story. I b but the only depressing thing about it is that despite everything you were then able to bring to bear on her problem, and certainly Bill Clinton in the end, I think, spoke to the German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder about it, and he you you weren't able to do anything for her to get those children back.

Sir Christopher Meyer26:05

That is absolutely right.

Sir Christopher Meyer26:07

In some ways the fact that she had married the British ambassador firstly to to the United States in a sense increased the resistance at the other end in Germany. In a curious perverse way, it hindered, it didn't help.

Sir Christopher Meyer26:21

I'm afraid that the uh the the justice system in Lower Saxony was absolutely impla

Presenter26:26

Yeah.

Sir Christopher Meyer26:27

Yes, she has seen the children, but this is in large part because the older boy is now an adult.

Sir Christopher Meyer26:33

So it's taken nine years from 1994 to one of them reaching the age of majority at 18.

Sir Christopher Meyer26:40

for a for contact to be resumed, and it's got nothing to do with help either from judges or civil servants or politicians. So it's been a long, long haul.

Sir Christopher Meyer26:51

And indeed one of the reasons why we we we returned when we did to uh London this year was because we knew that we had to be nearby uh after the older boy's eighteenth birthday.

Presenter27:04

Next piece we have.

Sir Christopher Meyer27:05

I talked about little Richard knocking my socks off. Well, when I put on a new pair of socks, a few years later, my socks are knocked off again.

Sir Christopher Meyer27:13

and it is the Scottish Australian.

Sir Christopher Meyer27:16

A C D C

Sir Christopher Meyer27:17

And I'd like to hear.

Sir Christopher Meyer27:19

Highway to Hell

Speaker 127:40

Don't stop me!

Presenter27:50

ACDC and Highway to Hell. And so to the Press Complaints Commission, Christopher, where you took the chair at the end of March this year, didn't you? That's right.

Speaker 327:59

Uh

Presenter27:59

organization that attempts to curb the worst excesses of newspaper editors, who years ago, of course, were said to be drinking in the last chance saloon, and indeed they still are, are they not, truly?

Sir Christopher Meyer28:09

No, I don't think they are that. I don't think they are drinking in the last chance saloon. I've I've lived and worked in, what is it, seven or eight different countries, and in all of them I've read newspapers, and I've read them with with intently because I love newspapers. I think we have the best newspapers and the best newspaper industry in the world.

Presenter28:27

Yes, but therefore it's very, very competitive, and therefore you have them breaking the rules all of the time because of the competition.

Sir Christopher Meyer28:32

Because of

Sir Christopher Meyer28:34

Ha ha.

Sir Christopher Meyer28:35

The rules are broken from time to time. That is absolutely true. And indeed, we will have a record number of complaints this year. The Press Complaints Commission will, by the end of this year, have dealt with 4,000 complaints. Most of these complaints, over 90%, come from ordinary people. A lot of people think that what I'm about is celebrities and privacy. This is a tiny, tiny little particle of what we deal with.

Presenter28:57

Yes, but it focuses the whole point. I mean, let's take the Royal Family, for example. I mean, surely it's about competition, isn't it, this latest case? Printed because another newspaper earlier on had had the whole Burrell story to itself. It's competition.

Sir Christopher Meyer29:10

Well, competition will play a role in this, but most of the complaints we have are about simple accuracy. They're not about privacy. Now, if somebody is going to go out there

Presenter29:10

Well come with

Sir Christopher Meyer29:20

and make accusations whether it's about the royal family, whether it's about politicians, whether it's about footballers. If he is out there on the record saying things, are you telling me that a newspaper should not publish what he says? One thing that the Press Complaints Commission or anybody else or the government cannot get into is simple censorship. We have to make a distinction between freedom of expression on the one hand and a series of very strict rules which are set out in our code of practice.

Presenter29:48

Are you enjoying it or I love it?

Sir Christopher Meyer29:49

I love it.

Presenter29:50

Dear

Sir Christopher Meyer29:51

That's wonderful.

Presenter29:52

Answering all those complaints, isn't there a great tedium to that side of the job?

Sir Christopher Meyer29:53

Isn't there a great

Sir Christopher Meyer29:56

Just to give you my philosophy. Winston Churchill said about democracy that it was the least efficient form of government until you compare it to all the others. Self-regulation of the press is something similar. It's got all kinds of jagged edges, but it's better than any alternative. And the reason I love it is because it's kind of the crossroads of public policy, politics, ordinary human beings, all the great issues.

Sir Christopher Meyer30:23

Of society come together there in their both sublime and ridiculous. It's terrific.

Presenter30:29

You just like being where it's at, really, don't you?

Sir Christopher Meyer30:31

Well, I like a bit of whitewater rafting from time to time, and I'm sure as hell getting it in a moment.

Presenter30:38

Record number seven.

Sir Christopher Meyer30:39

When I was in our embassy in Madrid in the early 70s, I got to know a lot of exiles from Latin America. And there was a Cuban nightclub in Madrid called Los Hitanios, a little gypsies, and Cuban music is so evocative of that period. And this piece, Chan Chan, would be an eloquent reminder.

Presenter31:28

Buena Vista Social Club and Chan Chan. Um a lot of people could have thought you were a bit

Presenter31:33

wily, I think, bailing out of Washington, what, a month before the war broke out. But in fact you had a a deeply personal reason apart from anything else for doing so, not just the boys you mentioned earlier.

Sir Christopher Meyer31:44

I did have a serious problem. I mean, I'd been diagnosed with a heart murmur. I think what it it really gives you perspective. It really does. Because

Sir Christopher Meyer31:56

Every now and again when you get something particularly tough at the Press Complaints Commission or whatever, I mean Catherine I mean Catherine and I talk about it and we say to each other, Well, to hell with it. If we get fed up with all this, we just head off to our little flat in the foothills of the French Alps and live on your pension. And you you always know that option is there. You can just go and to hell with everybody. And it I think it's it's it has a very salutary effect on you.

Presenter32:26

Last record.

Sir Christopher Meyer32:27

The last record is a a kind of symbol of hope. I mean it is very, very depressing when you see popular music dominated by boy bands who are totally indistinguishable the one from the other, and so are the girl bands as well. And suddenly there comes a renaissance, a kind of revisiting from the past. And my two sons, James and William, said to me one day,

Sir Christopher Meyer32:51

Dad, you've got to hear this band The Darkness. It's just your music. And I thought, I just don't believe this. It's just not true.

Sir Christopher Meyer33:00

And I bought the C D and it is just my music. So let's have the hit, which is I think called I Believe in a Thing Called Love.

Speaker 133:11

Can't explain all the feelings that you're making me feel

Speaker 133:18

My heart's been overdriving you behind the steering wheel

Speaker 133:24

I believe in a fingo level. Just the third of them all. There's a chance you can make it now. Wouldn't it be better sung as now? I believe in a big no love. Get down!

Presenter33:40

That was the darkness and I believe in a thing called love. Now, if you could only take one of those eight records, Christopher, which one would you take?

Sir Christopher Meyer33:46

I take Robert Johnson and Crossroad Blues. It reminds me of America. It evokes America and it evokes all the music I really like.

Presenter33:56

What about your book? You've got the Bible, you've got Shakespeare.

Sir Christopher Meyer33:58

The Four Adventures of RICHARD HANNEY BY JOHN BUCKHAM that is to say, The Thirty Nine Steps, Green Mantle, The Three Hostages, and Mr Standfast. I have read them God knows how many times throughout my life, from the age of about ten onwards, and when I felt like

Sir Christopher Meyer34:15

Comforting myself when I was in hospital, I read them. I read all four again in hospital this year.

Sir Christopher Meyer34:22

And most of the time now you buy them in a single volume, so please may I take all four with me?

Presenter34:26

Well, yes, and a luxury.

Sir Christopher Meyer34:29

The luxury has got to be a jukebox because I strongly object to the BBC's luxury. This is another cheat. No, no, no, no, no. It's a luxury.

Presenter34:33

It is enough.

Presenter34:37

I I say nothing. I simply say, Sir Christopher Mayer, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Sir Christopher Meyer34:40

And G for letting us here.

Sir Christopher Meyer34:42

It's been a pleasure, so thank you very much.

Speaker 334:51

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.