Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Liberal Democrat leader and Deputy Prime Minister in a coalition government, the most powerful Liberal since Lloyd George.
On the island
Eight records
Waltz in A minor, Op. 34 No. 2
Miriam is a great, great pianist and you know, I think I'm the luckiest man in the world to be to be married to Miriam and I always think of her when I listen to this music because she played this a lot when uh she was pregnant with our first boy, um Antonio, who's now eight years old.
Absolutely fantastic. Johnny Cash, Sunday morning coming down, it's just fantastic. But why I love this is because when I come from a quite a large family, four brothers and sisters, and we used to often go on sort of road trips with my parents. They used to sort of drive us across, you know, Europe through the night. And they play Johnny Cash a lot. So this this reminds me a lot when I was much, much, much younger driving through the night with my parents and my brothers and sisters.
Oh, Prince. I just think Prince is fantastic. It's such quirky, clever music. And I spent a year in Minneapolis as a student. And saw him there a couple of times. I just think he's brilliant.
The next one is Cesaria Evora. She's an amazing singer, and this reminds me a lot of the time when Miriam and I, before we got married, we lived in Brussels. It's actually where our first two boys were born. So it just brings incredibly happy memories back of, you know, when we were first married and at our first home, and our children were first born. It's a beautiful song.
Radiohead. What a great, great band. I've got I've got no great sort of story attached to this other than the fact that I think a lot of people in my I'm forty three, a lot of people of my generation will have a have a Radiohead song on on their list. And this is just a this is one of many great songs.
David Bowie. What a genius. You can almost feel, you know, not least in this great song, Life on Mars, that he's he's not just playing it, he's also kind of in every instrument. He's across every instrument.
Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)
Let's have some music. I should apologize for this to everybody listening. This is actually a track I really find quite annoying, but I would love to have it on my desert island because it reminds me so much, particularly of my youngest little one and a half-year-old. It's Waka Waka. Shakira is the theme due to the World Cup, and uh he has worked out with his little fingers how to press the icons on Miriam's iPad to be able to get the money.
Impromptu No. 3 in G-flat major, D. 899Favourite
This is an impromptu from Schubert. I'm not, I don't think, particularly musical. Miriam is, thankfully. My children are, my brother and my dad are. And my father used to play this a lot when I was younger. It's just the most extraordinary piece of music. I just find it as moving now as I did when I first heard it.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:17How do you feel about supporting these difficult and unpopular cuts?
Well, of course, I wasn't doing so with any sense of relish or triumphalism about what we had to announce, but we've had to, as a government, announce extraordinarily difficult and unpopular and controversial things. And I've spent every day of this process, and pretty well every minute of this process, asking myself whether there are sort of pain-free alternatives, whether we're doing the right thing, and I genuinely believe that there is no easy alternative.
Presenter asks
7:29What advice did your wife Miriam give you when you discussed the possibility of becoming Deputy Prime Minister?
I mean I think we kind of wrestled with it really and you know was it the right way? I don't think we had any illusions about the risks, both political and the impact on our family. We've been very, very kind of scrupulous at trying to shelter our family and shelter our children. We stay in the same home and not perhaps this week very much, but on other weeks I still walk the children to school and we keep them out of the public eye and so on. And I think Miriam wanted a clear sense of assurance, if you like, that we could continue to do that. And we still try and do that.
Presenter asks
11:40What were some of the worst things your mother went through while in the Japanese prisoner of war camp?
The keepsakes
The book
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
It's just the most amazing book of sort of decay and change. I think it's set in Sicily. And I read it again the other day. And it's one of the few books when I read it a second time that I liked it even more than the first time. So I'm assuming my desert island. If I read it a third and a fourth and a fifth time, it'll get better and better.
The luxury
I do like the occasional cigarette so I wouldn't mind just having a a stash of cigarettes. I can just imagine as the sun's going down and I've got the beard you know flowing down to my knees and I'm thinking about what on earth am I going to do to while away the time, just puffing away the cigarette would be quite nice. I know I'm not supposed to say this'cause it's all but it's a terrible thing and I hope my children don't hear this programme because they don't even know that I smoke but I do like the occasional cigarette.
You know, if you're a young girl and you see people being sort of, you know, beaten to a pulp in front of you and people being sort of dragged off and shot, I can only imagine what that must be like for a child of the age of my oldest boy now. But I'm not going to try and pretend that I can do justice to the things she saw.
Presenter asks
18:45Was Minneapolis where your political ideas began to take shape?
Actually, it did have a big effect on me, and actually, it's where I really first decided kind of ideologically and philosophically that I was a liberal. And of course, one of the great difficulties with politics is that the sheer velocity of politics and the sheer velocity of decisions and responses you have to give in a sort of 24-hour media environment often means you're kind of running before you've really kind of thought through in your own conscience. And that's, you know, I've tried and strike that balance, but it just allows your whole, you know, your mind to settle a bit and really ask yourself sort of big questions about what you're doing and so on.
Presenter asks
23:52At what point during the coalition negotiations did you feel you understood David Cameron and could trust him?
I think relatively quickly I sort of felt that there was something sincere going on. There was a genuine view that we both shared that no one had won the election. We were all losers. I sometimes think people have forgotten that. No one won the election. And I think we both saw that quite clearly quite early on and both saw that what we had to do at this stage was try and provide a sense of stable, strong government for the country. But I mean, look, we didn't know each other. I even texted a friend of mine who I knew knew him a bit. And I said to him, I just sent a single line text, can I trust this guy? I mean, because that's very important. You need to know that you can deal with each other.
Presenter asks
28:13Did you ever think it was not the right time for you to commit to a political life when your family was going through such intense medical drama?
Yes, I did. Yes, a lot. A lot. I'm sure. Same as everybody. I sometimes think, gosh. You know, wouldn't it be better to do this when the children were grown up? Because you always want to spend more time with with the children. Again, I think a lot of people think the same in their own working lives, if they've got the balance right.
“I'm not going to hide the fact that a lot of this is both difficult, I find it morally difficult, it's difficult for the country. I think on these issues about how do you try and do difficult things today in order to create a better tomorrow, you've got to be able to look at yourself in the mirror and say, Am I doing this for the right reasons?”
“I just felt it was a bit like what we were saying earlier. I just felt I had thought it all through and there were no other easy options.”
“I really am a father before I am a politician. I'm completely besotted with my little boys. They just mean everything to me, so.”