Andrew Neil

Presenter0:00

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. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand seven.

Presenter0:28

My castaway this week is the journalist and broadcaster Andrew Neal. As editor of the Sunday Times, he cut an unconventional swathe through the upper echelons of the broadsheet establishment.

Presenter0:39

responsible for not just reporting the news, but shaping it.

Presenter0:42

Fearless at embracing change, and constantly seeing life as a series of challenges, along with breaking the biggest stories of the day, he broke the notorious stranglehold of the Unions too, abandoning Fleet Street to take the paper to Whopping in a fierce and often violent dispute. So then Andrew Neal, editor of the Sunday Times, for eleven years, presiding over a number of of significant scoops. For you what was the biggest?

Andrew Neil1:07

Oh, I think the biggest was probably revealing the full extent of Israel's nuclear arsenal. After all, it was big enough for our only source to be kidnapped by Mossad of the Israeli Secret Service.

Andrew Neil1:17

and he then spent sixteen years in jail he's still effectively under house arrest in Israel now.

Presenter1:22

How big a personal decision was it for you to run that story?

Andrew Neil1:24

It was a huge personal decision, and I remember sitting in my office at the Sunday Times, surrounded by my senior editors, and I told them all to leave the room and I would give them a decision in half an hour's time. And I walked out of the room and I said prepare pages one, two, three, four, five and six. We're going with the story. And there was muttering at the background saying this will be Niels Hitler diaries.

Presenter1:45

Well, of course let's remind ourselves. I mean, this was only a few short years after the Sunday Times had suffered as a result of the fake Hitler diaries. So the importance of it was not just in the significance of the story, but in the significance of putting the paper's credibility on the line yet again.

Andrew Neil1:50

As a result

Andrew Neil1:59

Indeed, the the Hitler Diaries um scandal had taken place in May of nineteen eighty three. I became editor in October of nineteen eighty three. This was nineteen eighty six. It wasn't long afterwards. The paper could not have withstood another Hitler diaries.

Presenter2:14

Mordechai Venunu, the informer, as you've characterized him, spent the best part of twenty years in jail. Do you think about that often now? Of course you've moved on, but in in essence he's been living with the consequences of being your informer ever since.

Andrew Neil2:26

Ever since. There's not a time when I don't think when this issue comes up what we could have done that it wasn't so.

Andrew Neil2:33

but we had warned him to be very careful. We had tried to look after him. Now we we knew that he was in danger, but he wouldn't listen to us. And then he met this blonde in Leicester Square, and she said that she liked him, but there was no chance of a sexual relation in London.

Andrew Neil2:51

But if he went to Rome with her, where his her sister had a flat, then maybe things would develop there. A classic honey trap. Classic honey trap. And when he got off the plane in Rome she hailed a taxi, but it wasn't a taxi. There were two Mosside agents in the back of the car. They chloroformed him and he woke up on a tramp steamer to Tel Aviv.

Presenter3:12

The most extraordinary copy all of this makes, of course, and and you were the editor, and and by God, you knew what a good story it was.

Presenter3:20

How heavily, I wonder, does it prey on you that actually what makes a brilliant story can ruin people's lives?

Andrew Neil3:27

Anything that we publish can ruin people's lives and I think if editors were always to think about the consequences of what they publish, you might end up publishing nothing at all. I'm afraid consequences have to look after themselves. Our duty is to establish the truth and publish it. What's your first record? My first record is James Taylor, Fire and Rain. It is one of the most beautiful songs of the twentieth century. My brother was a singer, and music was always being played in our house when he was around. So I grew up with a love of beautiful lyrics and of lyricism and strong melody. And Fire and Rain for me brings back many memories of my younger life.

Speaker 34:08

Don't you look down upon me, Jesus. You gotta help me make a stand.

Speaker 34:15

Just got to see me through another day

Speaker 34:21

My body's aching and my time is at hand.

Speaker 34:28

I won't make it any other way.

Speaker 34:34

Oh, I've seen fire, and I've seen rain.

Presenter4:38

James Taylor and Fire and Rain. So, Andrew Neal, you've been immersed, of course, in politics for a lot of your professional life. Was it a political home you came from?

Andrew Neil4:45

Not in the sense that my family was involved in politics, but there were always political discussions going on.

Andrew Neil4:52

We were encouraged to talk and discuss these things.

Presenter4:55

And what were your parents' political working class Tories?

Andrew Neil4:56

Yeah.

Andrew Neil4:58

Right.

Presenter4:58

You had a big brother. He w he was quite a lot older, ten years older.

Andrew Neil5:01

Ten years older, so in a sense I was a single child, but he was a very tolerant big brother. He was a great brother, is a great brother.

Presenter5:07

And your father had been in the army?

Andrew Neil5:08

Yes, my father had joined the army um before the Second World broke out World War broke out, and I think he saw the war coming.

Andrew Neil5:17

My brother was born in april nineteen thirty nine. My father didn't see him until he was four.

Andrew Neil5:23

My mother told the story of uh my father was finally came back on leave, I think it'd be about nineteen forty two, forty three, by this time, and they were standing at the end of the station at Glasgow Central Station.

Andrew Neil5:34

And um

Andrew Neil5:35

My brother went saw this man and saluted.

Andrew Neil5:39

He knew it was my father.

Presenter5:41

Extraordinary. Your your mother must have been some woman to keep the show on the road through all of that.

Andrew Neil5:45

Yeah.

Presenter5:45

She uh

Andrew Neil5:45

Um

Andrew Neil5:47

She had to work in the mill to uh to make ends meet. And um she had um she had a job. She was one of the mill girls. She worked on the assembly line, or whatever it is they do in the cotton spinning.

Andrew Neil5:58

Uh

Andrew Neil5:59

And until I guess my father became an officer. As you know, in war, um.

Andrew Neil6:03

Promotion happens quickly and promotion has to go to merit. And so my father quickly went through the ranks and I think things became better. Uh but in the early days when they had really nothing my father my mother had to move in with my brother into the local drill hall where my grandfather was based, where the local army was,'cause they couldn't afford to live on on their own.

Presenter6:24

The family life that you saw at very close hand from a very early age was all about stepping up to the mark, your father out there in situations that one wouldn't necessarily want one's dad to be placed in, your mother working hard in the mills, it was all about personal improvement, endeavour and hard work.

Andrew Neil6:42

Well, you know, I think for my parents it was for survival. They did work hard and they depended on nobody but themselves to get on.

Andrew Neil6:50

but they took great pleasure in watching myself and my brother.

Andrew Neil6:55

take advantage of the opportunities that they never had.

Andrew Neil6:58

Tell me about your second piece of music. The second piece of music is Blood, Sweat and Tears, Smiling Faces. I've always I'm always interested in music that mixes things, and I guess I'm a Gemini, and this mixes two things. It mixes jazz, which was modern jazz, which was a great passion of mine when I was younger, and it mixes rock music, which always has been a great passion. And they are consummate musicians, Blood, Sweat and Tears. And at university, we listen to this because we as students knew we were a cut above the rest. We didn't listen to the bubblegum music. At least that's what we thought anyway. We listened to this kind of music.

Presenter7:27

So he didn't listen.

Speaker 47:36

Do yourself a favor, wake up to your mind. Life is what you make it, you see, but still you're blind. Get yourself together, get before you take. You'll find out the hard way, soon you'll colour break. Hey, hey, hey!

Speaker 47:55

Smiling faces, go in places, and if they bust that you just keep on smiling through and through.

Presenter8:03

Blood, sweat and tears and smiling faces. Um you were academic, yes, you passed the eleven plus, but you were listening there to the drums. You say, You come to the drum You're a you were a drummer, you started a jazz band in the middle of the morning.

Andrew Neil8:08

As be

Andrew Neil8:12

Yes, I was. No, no, not a jazz band, a rock band. I do beg your pardon. We did simpler things than that. I listen to these drums and wonder how he does it.

Presenter8:20

Right. Well, let let's talk about those earlier studies then. You'd pass your eleventh plus, gone to Paisley Grammar School, which was a very good school. What kind of a pupil were you?

Andrew Neil8:23

Yeah.

Andrew Neil8:25

Yeah.

Andrew Neil8:27

I was a hard working pu pupil. Um I wanted to get on. Uh I think I was quite a popular pupil as well. I got elected a prefect, so the prefects were elected, not chosen by the teachers. And it was a great school. I mean but much has been made of my background being an ordinary background, and it was an ordinary background, but in many ways I had the most privileged background of all.

Andrew Neil8:47

I had two loving parents. I had a wonderful brother. I went to a a sixteenth century elite school, and I went to an elite university to study economics, where Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations. Now, to me that is as privileged as you can get.

Presenter9:02

Which was Glasgow University. You say much has been made of your background, and it's true. There's not a a profile that's written about you or a satirical piece where it's not brought up that you're this boy from the back streets, which as you characterise it doesn't seem quite accurate. But why do you think it is that people concentrate so much on your background?

Andrew Neil9:18

Because I think it's part of our British culture that we're more obsessed with where people come from than where they're going.

Andrew Neil9:25

There is still a huge class prism through which we see things in our country. I mean, and to some extent it it's all it's all right in in that it's a kind of he fought against the odds.

Andrew Neil9:36

All I'm saying is that the odds were not as highly stacked up against me as some profile writers have uh made out.

Presenter9:43

Um clearly you're a man of great ambition, and you've done a great many things in your life. But as a teenager, as a young boy, were you conscious that there was something propelling you forward?

Andrew Neil9:53

Yes, I was, but I don't know what, and I didn't know to what. But I I did things that were in the public eye. I debated at school.

Andrew Neil10:00

Even when I got to university I debated, I edited the university newspaper, I helped to start the university television service. So I was always doing things that were a bit in the public eye. And I I think also that the the school that I went to encouraged that too. I mean the the school enc gave the impression that there there was nothing that wasn't attainable if you had the ability and you put your mind to it and you worked hard for it. And um and I did.

Andrew Neil10:27

What's your next record? My next record. I mentioned earlier that of my interest when I was younger in modern jazz and of classical music as well. And this next one is Miles Davis, probably the greatest trumpeter the world has known, doing a classical piece, Conciato de Aranuez, by Rodrigo. A very famous tune, and everyone will get it immediately. But it is normally played in guitar, whereas here Davis is playing fugal horn with a hat on the front of it to get that kind of tone. Again, it brings back many happy memories of listening as a youngster.

Presenter11:43

Miles Davis and part of the Concerto de Ranchueth. It sounds as if you were carving yourself out at university, this future career, as potentially a politician, but certainly somebody who was at the the heart of power. You were on the university council, you were editing the student newspaper. How much of it was mapped out and planned?

Andrew Neil12:04

I don't think any of it was mapped out, but there was always an assumption that if you did these things you would get on. And don't forget that probably after Oxford and Cambridge,

Andrew Neil12:13

In modern times the University of Glasgow was a great forcing ground for debaters and politicians. Donald Dewar, John Smith, Charles Kennedy, Ming Campbell. They all came from there, and many others too. There was a kind of carve up there, though. The Federation of Conservative Students, which in these days was the fast track to being the next Conservative Party, when I was elected, I mean, from a very non-traditional background, I was elected national chairman, and they said to me, Well, you have to come down to London now. Which for me was just a dream come true. There I was in

Andrew Neil12:49

In twenty four old Queen Street, within the sound of Big Ben, at the heart of Westminster.

Andrew Neil12:56

As this young boy from Paisley and Glasgow University, briefing MPs, writing speeches for the then Prime Minister.

Andrew Neil13:03

I mean, it it you had to wake up in the morning and prick yourself to make sure that it wasn't all a dream.

Presenter13:08

I mean writing speeches.

Andrew Neil13:09

For Ted Heath, it would have been a good idea.

Presenter13:11

Yeah, let me tell you that

Andrew Neil13:13

I mean, you wanted to grab the speech from him and say, No, this is how you deliver it. Can you remember any of your great lines? Uh no, there were no great lines, and if there were, he would have mangled them. Uh but the more I was there doing it, the more I realized that the political life was not for me, at least not in my early twenties, I thought it would be crazy to go into politics right away. What do I know about the world? I should go and see the world first of all.

Andrew Neil13:34

But the moment I saw the world I realized I didn't want to be in politics. I wanted still to be involved in politics and to be writing about it and to be part of the debate, but I didn't in the end want to be a politician myself.

Presenter13:46

What's your next record?

Andrew Neil13:47

It's Elgar, which I think is fitting. I've just moved the spectator into uh uh a house in twenty two O'Queen Street. So you see I I started my working life in twenty four, so in thirty five years I've gone down two blocks.

Presenter13:59

You've come a long way

Andrew Neil13:59

Or maybe not, so I think it should be an inspiration to people.

Presenter13:59

Yeah.

Andrew Neil14:02

Um Elgar used to go there after his uh performances. It was a great benefactor. Their own Twenty two Queen Street, and they had big parties, and the the kind of sounds of Elgar permeate through. I think it's very fitting for the spectator. I I come from Scotland.

Andrew Neil14:17

But at heart I'm I regard myself as British, and I'm proud to be British, and I see no conflict between being proud to be Scottish and proud to be British.

Presenter14:27

At least something you have in common with Gordon Brown then.

Andrew Neil14:29

Yes, though saddlers have always felt that way. So I've chosen Nimrod, which I think is quintessentially British.

Presenter15:32

Nimrod from Elgar's Enigma Variations, performed by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Charles Dutroy. You moved on to to work in America. You were in fact sent by The Economist.

Andrew Neil15:43

Yes, I was. I I joined The Economist in 1973. I was hired by Alastair Burnett, who was then the editor, the great broadcaster and great editor.

Andrew Neil15:53

And uh Alastair really became my mentor, and still is my mentor.

Andrew Neil15:59

But I did the Winter of Discontent, which was a miserable time in this country. I remember writing my stories by by Hurricane Lamp.

Andrew Neil16:05

Having to walk home because the traffic lights didn't work, because of power cuts. And when I was offered the opportunity to then go and be American correspondent for the for in the United States for The Economist, I took it with both hands. And there was just this sense of unbounded opportunity and of a can-do mentality, and that if something is broke, we'll fix it. Did you feel liberated then? Yes, I felt liberated, and it changed my views as well. What America gave me was a strong view both of the benefits of the free market or of the market economy, but also of social liberalism, of the idea that people should be allowed to lead their own lives.

Andrew Neil16:41

And in London in the nineteen seventies I had been I had spent most of my time in a little wine bar in the King's Road, called the Knows Wine Bar.

Andrew Neil16:49

Which was Britain's multiracial society before it was multiracial society. Right from the start I felt most comfortable in a mixed environment. I hate all male environments, and I hate sort of mono colour environments as well. I like difference, and America gave me that difference.

Presenter17:09

I'm so glad you brought up the wine bar in the Kings Road, because I'm listening to you talking, I'm thinking it sounds like work, work, work, work, work.

Andrew Neil17:15

No, we had gr we learned to work hard and play hard.

Andrew Neil17:18

What did you like?

Presenter17:18

What did you like?

Andrew Neil17:19

To do in your spare time?

Presenter17:29

In years. Of course, the moment of sea change was was Thatcherism. When you returned to Britain, was that a clear ringing voice to you? Did you think this makes sense and this will change Britain?

Andrew Neil17:33

Yeah.

Andrew Neil17:39

It wasn't to begin with, I I didn't vote for Mrs. Thatcher in nineteen seventy nine.

Andrew Neil17:43

But when I got back uh to Britain in 1982 um

Andrew Neil17:48

With my experience of the United States I began to see what she was up to, and although she and I had many fall outs, but that didn't mean any less that I saw that what she was doing in many areas not in all but in many areas um had to be done.

Presenter18:06

A lot of people uh that I've encountered like the power of being an editor because it does open doors for them, because they get to sit and have a whisky with the Prime Minister of the day at midnight when he's tumbling through his thoughts and looks for their opinion. Those doors being slammed in your face, it doesn't seem to bother you at all.

Andrew Neil18:22

No, in fact I think it was very healthy. I think journalism becomes dangerous when we think that we're part of the government. We are not. We we're outside them. It is not our job to be cheerleaders for them. And regardless of what we think, when we get a story that is factually correct, whether it damages the people you're supporting or not, you have to publish it. I published the story Queen Dismayed by Uncaring Thatcher.

Andrew Neil18:46

where the Queen had let it be known she didn't like a lot of the changes that Mrs Thatcher was introducing. Mrs Thatcher sent word back that it had taken nine points off her in the opinion polls, the publishing of that story. The royal family uh the the the palace tried to get me removed as editor. By this time Alastair Burnett was a director of Times newspapers and he helped to save me. My old mentor was there when I needed him and having managed to annoy both Downing Street and Buckingham Palace in one week.

Andrew Neil19:14

I then won the award that I am most proud of, which was the editor least likely ever to get a knighthood.

Andrew Neil19:20

That's indeed proved to be true.

Presenter19:21

What's your name?

Andrew Neil19:23

Piece of music. Well, I talked um about the United States and um for me the whole sense of promise and of opportunity uh uh and of wonder of the United States is summed up in The New World Symphony uh by Dvorak.

Presenter20:37

Part of Dvorak's New World Symphony performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir George Schulte.

Presenter20:45

Andrew, you have touched on those a few of those moments when, as editor of the Sunday Times, life was made very difficult for you. People tried to get you out of your job. Let's rewind a little, though, to the day.

Andrew Neil20:55

The date

Presenter20:56

Well, we'll talk about that. You were only thirty four when you were offered the job by Rupert Murdoch. Although you had a very good solid career behind you, you were by no means a shoe in. I mean, you were a surprise appointment.

Andrew Neil21:00

When

Andrew Neil21:08

And the opposite of a shoe in there. When I look back at it, it was a bonkous decision by Rupert Murdoch. I was only thirty four. Not only had I I'd never edited a national newspaper before, I'd never worked on a newspaper before.

Andrew Neil21:20

I guess it was Murdoch saw something in me that I didn't see in myself. I wasn't sure I could do the job. Indeed, the only anxiety attack I've ever had in my life was flying back to take up the job. I I found it very hard to breathe and I sat at a hyperventilate and the flight attendant had to come and give me some water. She actually held my hand for part of the journey. She and and it was the apprehension at the thought of being offered a job that I was by no means sure I could do.

Presenter21:46

But the reason that Rupert Murdoch may have chosen you was indeed because he thought that you could do his bidding. You'd be pliable enough to just sit down and say whatever he told you.

Andrew Neil21:55

I think at the time he was s given that at these times the Sandy Times was stuck in a kind of nineteen seventies time warp.

Andrew Neil22:01

I think he was just happy with anybody that may produce a paper that marginally resembled the planet he was on.

Andrew Neil22:08

I think getting someone to do his bidding uh was beyond his wildest dreams.

Presenter22:12

Yeah.

Andrew Neil22:13

Yeah.

Presenter22:13

The move to Wapping Then, how did that actually begin? Where were the seats of that? So

Andrew Neil22:17

The seeds of that were partly me urging Murdoch to do it. He didn't want to do it.

Andrew Neil22:22

Ah, he didn't think we could do it on our own.

Andrew Neil22:24

And I then said, and it was something that made I said, Well, Eddie Shah has.

Andrew Neil22:28

And Eddie Schar was the little businessman in Warrington, in the north of England, who had taken on the might of the NGA and the and the London print unions, and he had won. And it was Shah's example that in a way shamed Murdoch into saying if he can do it, we have to do something as well.

Presenter22:46

I said in the introduction that you are a man who not only you know, you d it's not that you shy away from a challenge, you actively seem to run at a challenge that you can do. I didn't.

Andrew Neil22:53

I did in these days.

Presenter22:55

Not any more?

Andrew Neil22:55

No, I don't think so, I think I've done the challenges.

Presenter22:58

Did you think when you entered into the fight with the unions over Whopping, did you feel We will always win this? I know how it's gonna turn out?

Andrew Neil23:08

No, I didn't. But I felt we had to fight it. I felt that the future of my newspaper, of the British newspaper industry, depended on it.

Presenter23:16

Let's take a break for some music. There's a lot more to talk about. What's your next record?

Andrew Neil23:19

Uh my next uh uh one is uh is rather more fun than uh talking about whopping. It's Tchaikovsky's violin concerto. Tchaikovsky wrote the violin concerto when he was in Italy and he had just left his wife and he was with his boyfriend by then. He was living the life he wanted to live. I I know Beethoven's final movement uh of the ninth is an ode to joy, but this is I regard this as the real ode to joy. This is written with such happiness and ver for life that if I have ever felt unhappy, I play this and you can't not but smile.

Speaker 424:41

Uh

Presenter24:51

NIGEL KENNNEDY, playing part of the opening of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D major, with the London Philharmonic conducted by Oko Kamu. So it was Sunday, the twenty sixth of january, nineteen eighty six, that the first Sunday Times was printed out of Whopping, with thousands of pickets around the gates. What was the atmosphere?

Andrew Neil25:10

Well, the atmosphere was very threatening. I was surrounded then by two large men, who followed me everywhere for the next thirteen months, and I had a special driver who was trained to reverse at sixty miles an hour.

Andrew Neil25:21

As a former French paratrooper, life became very different.

Presenter25:25

Were there personal threats against you?

Andrew Neil25:26

Those were regular personal threats against me.

Andrew Neil25:28

And there were times when I thought my life was in danger, and uh there was one night when I saw fear in my bodyguard's eyes, and we thought they were going to break in.

Presenter25:35

What happened?

Andrew Neil25:36

We thought that they were out to defy the weight of people we thought the police lines were going to buckle. And we knew if they did that we were we would be killed. It's as simple as that. There would be a mob rampage.

Andrew Neil25:48

But I was genuinely, genuinely in fear of my life.

Presenter25:52

Were there any times during that period then when you thought, actually, it's not worth it, I know I'm right, but it's not worth it?

Andrew Neil25:59

No, but there were times when I felt it was very gruelling. The strike was going on and on and on. I couldn't move anywhere. We had to go i to work by a different route every morning. When I came home at night I had to sit in a car half a mile away while my house was searched in case anybody was waiting inside it.

Andrew Neil26:18

But that's the way it was.

Presenter26:20

And give us a flavour of the stuff that went on, because now, although it's a relatively short time, we've come a very long way. I mean, you had people signing on as Mickey Mouse or Margaret Thatcher to collect pay checks for jobs that didn't exist.

Andrew Neil26:29

Checks for joint.

Andrew Neil26:30

I employed Mickey Mouse, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan. We employed about 300 people on a Saturday night, but only fifty or sixty ever turned up.

Andrew Neil26:38

To do any work, the the the print room was like a bazaar. You could buy fridges, uh microwaves, anoracts, whatever you wanted.

Andrew Neil26:47

It was a white East End male monopoly.

Presenter26:50

The other side of a strike, of course, is that the people who bring home the bacon don't bring it home any more and that families do suffer terrible hardship. Did did you ever spare a thought for those people?

Andrew Neil26:59

Yes, I did spirit with thought form, but it would be hypocritical for me to say that that um

Andrew Neil27:04

that I felt really sorry for them, because I didn't. They had taken the decision and had to live with the consequences of it. They could have come to whopping.

Andrew Neil27:11

And when we eventually went, we we didn't go offering starvation wages and a non unionized labour force. Our labour force was unionized, and we paid the highest wages in the land.

Presenter27:20

But Andrew, you did of course notoriously em employ a no-strike rule, and of course if somebody can't withdraw their labour ultimately as a protest against their conditions, they don't have much to negotiate with.

Andrew Neil27:26

Withdrawal

Andrew Neil27:28

Yeah.

Andrew Neil27:30

All we wanted were legally binding agreements, which, during the duration of that legally binding agreement,

Andrew Neil27:38

Say during a two-year period where the which the agreement covered you could not go on strike, and if there were any disputes they went to compulsory independent arbitration, which was binding on management and the workforce. Of course it was called a New Strike Agreement, because that looked like it was some withdrawal of human rights. It was never. It's exactly the kind of arrangements that are in place in every major company in America and Australia.

Andrew Neil28:02

Yeah.

Presenter28:02

Was there a point, or rather?

Andrew Neil28:04

Yeah.

Presenter28:04

What was the point at which you knew, We've won, we've done it?

Andrew Neil28:08

Because they hadn't stopped us getting the papers out.

Andrew Neil28:11

I mean, this was an army that had never been defeated, and in the end, they knew they had lost.

Andrew Neil28:17

and then we paid them to go away.

Presenter28:20

What's your seventh piece of music?

Andrew Neil28:22

If you come from my generation uh and have a love of music,

Andrew Neil28:26

Then the Beatles were somewhere in it.

Andrew Neil28:30

And this second side of Abbey Road I think is one of the greatest pieces of popular music that's ever been put together on an album. And this is where it reaches a climax with golden slumbers and carry that weight.

Speaker 428:41

Wants to lose away.

Speaker 428:46

Get back home.

Speaker 428:49

Sleep, pretty darling, do not cry.

Speaker 428:55

And I will sing a lullaby.

Speaker 429:02

You're gonna carry that weight.

Speaker 429:06

I really love it.

Presenter29:10

The beetles in Gulden slumbers and carry that weight.

Presenter29:14

Your career has been incredible, Andrew Neal. We've touched on only some of the things that have happened throughout it. And yet there continues to be, from certain people in the press, and in certain areas of the press in particular, a sort of sneery attitude towards you. They try to send you up as a bit of a joke.

Presenter29:34

What do you think motivates them?

Andrew Neil29:36

I'm not quite sure and um

Andrew Neil29:39

I think there is a kind of there's a nastiness.

Andrew Neil29:43

A bitchiness, but I use that across genders, that word, in our journalism. And I I've always been that kind of target. And you know, as I said, if you put your head above the parapet, every now and then it is going to be shot off. I mean, I and I've done stories and taken positions that have annoyed the left, have annoyed the right. I have no tribe of my own.

Andrew Neil30:04

It's just me.

Presenter30:05

Yeah.

Andrew Neil30:05

Yeah.

Presenter30:05

You see, I think you've nailed it there, saying you have no tribe. You're not an old Etonian. You're not ex Oxbridge. You're just a boy from a normal background who did incredibly well, and it it rubs a lot of people up the l the wrong way, quite considerably.

Andrew Neil30:20

It's if it does, it's depressing. All I would say to those um who do feel annoyed that someone like me can get on and actually I don't think there's that many, they just happen to have access to pens and type practice um, they should relax because

Andrew Neil30:34

It's getting it's much tougher for people from my background now. The meritocratic revolution has come to an end, um, sadly. And that those who um who think that they have the right to certain jobs, well, they should relax because they're they're gonna get them again.

Presenter30:50

What about the Playboy thing as well? I hinted at that, that you are known for turning up at all the right parties with lovely young ladies, sometimes more than one, on your arm.

Andrew Neil30:59

But I always think that Yeah.

Presenter31:00

Uh Yeah.

Andrew Neil31:00

In numbers.

Presenter31:02

Come on.

Andrew Neil31:02

And um

Presenter31:04

That doesn't do you any favours, though, does it?

Andrew Neil31:06

Yeah. Uh

Presenter31:06

Uh

Andrew Neil31:06

It depends what you want.

Presenter31:07

Publicly.

Andrew Neil31:08

It just depends what you want to to make of it. I mean, what's what's the issue? I mean, what what's

Presenter31:15

Well, the issue, I suppose, I don't have any personal issue with it, but I'm not sure. I'm asking you.

Andrew Neil31:15

Well the issue was it

Andrew Neil31:18

I was asking you

Presenter31:19

And it was a rhetorical question. In terms of the way you are characterized in the press, the issue could be that he likes to think that we take him terribly seriously and that he's terribly well educated and he associates with statesmen and politicians at a high level, but really, you know, he just likes a bit of skirt and a few drinks.

Andrew Neil31:36

Yeah, well I've cause i if

Andrew Neil31:38

If you do what I do, then and people want to put you down, then that's what they can say.

Andrew Neil31:44

Sometimes there may just be a little bit of jealousy coming into the coffee.

Presenter31:47

You've allowed work to define your life and it has been a very rich working life. Um you've never been married and you don't have children. Is that ever a regret?

Andrew Neil31:50

And it has

Andrew Neil31:57

Yes, I think it is a regret, though I wouldn't count it out.

Andrew Neil32:00

There have been times when I have come close to getting married, and I have there have times when I have been in love.

Andrew Neil32:05

That's just the way the cards have fallen.

Andrew Neil32:08

And uh um I wouldn't rule out getting married at all and and I and I'm very fond of children, as all my friends will tell you.

Andrew Neil32:17

Uh children and uh and me get on very well together. I'm very fond of Joden. So in a way I it's I regret what's happened. What I don't regret is getting mari married, having a family and then getting divorced.

Andrew Neil32:31

I kind of think when I look at the dysfunctional families around today,

Andrew Neil32:36

And the social problems that is causing, I think if that's the way it's going to go, it's better to be single and not do any damage.

Presenter32:43

What's your final record?

Andrew Neil32:45

Uh

Andrew Neil32:47

My final record is the Pet Shop Boys.

Andrew Neil32:50

For me, the Petro Boys were to the eighties what the Beatles were to the sixties. And I've chosen being boring because it's kind of about how you never thought you would be what you ended up being.

Andrew Neil33:03

But above all

Andrew Neil33:05

It was it says that whatever happened.

Andrew Neil33:07

Good, bad, mistakes, failures, triumph successes.

Andrew Neil33:11

We were never boring, and for me life has never been boring.

Speaker 433:15

He said we were never feeling bored.

Speaker 433:21

Cause we were never beating boring.

Speaker 433:26

We had too much time to find for ourselves.

Speaker 433:29

And we will never be here boring.

Speaker 433:34

We just don't thought

Speaker 433:38

Be wonderful whole

Speaker 433:41

Worry that time would come to end.

Presenter33:45

The Pet Shop Boys and Being Boring. So of course we give you the Bible, we give you the complete works of Shakespeare. What book would you like to take?

Andrew Neil33:52

I thought long and hard about this. I think it would have to be Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. When you have both Margaret Thatcher and Gordon Brown claiming to be the the child of Adam Smith, then I kind of feel you've got an influ an influential book across the political spectrum.

Presenter34:08

And what about your luxury?

Andrew Neil34:08

Uh

Presenter34:08

True.

Andrew Neil34:10

I couldn't bear to be cut off. That would be the worst thing, you know. So I would love, even if it was just a wind up one that you can now get, I'd love a radio that could get me either the B B C World Service or Radio Four.

Presenter34:23

We'll give you that then, the wind-up radio. And if uh the waves were to crash to the shore and threaten to wash away your disks, which one would you try to save?

Andrew Neil34:31

Yeah.

Andrew Neil34:32

That's also, I'd probably just cry.

Andrew Neil34:36

I think it would have to be Tchaikovsky, because listening to this would cheer me up in this desert island.

Presenter34:41

We will give you that. Andrew Neal, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Andrew Neil34:45

Thank you.

Presenter34:53

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