Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman who predicted the 2008 financial crisis and is seen as a credible economic voice.
On the island
Eight records
My father was a very strong personality, incredibly energetic, ambitious, intolerant. And in his later life he started singing in the minster and my mother and father's relationship was not an easy one, but they stuck together and they developed companionship in later life. Much of it around the minster where my father sung and she was a guide. And the music that they introduced me to as a child was very much the kind of oratoria tradition. So I think the Messiah captures that very well.
Am Abend, da es kühle war (from St Matthew Passion, BWV 244)
Paul Vincent and the Prague Philharmonia
This jumps to my present life. I have a grown up family now. My eldest son, Paul, is a very accomplished musician, and here he's singing in Prague in the Rudolph Finium with the Prague Philharmonia, Amarbent by Bach.
Although most of my choices are classical music, I love good popular music and uh this sort of conjures up so many romantic memories from my late teens and early twenties.
Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor, Op. 57 'Appassionata' (Final Movement)
The next piece of music actually captures the character of my wife, Olympia, who was a very beautiful, lovely woman who I adored from throughout our married life. And this piece, The Appassionata, actually captures her character. She was a very passionate woman and she loved the piano, she was a fine musician, and she was never happier than when sitting at home playing for hours, bashing out Beethoven.
Song to the Moon (from Rusalka)
This is my daughter-in-law, Agnesa Totova, married to Paul. She's a very fine singer, and she's singing The Song of the Moon by Borjak, and this has particular significance. We got at Olympia's funeral. She sang this beautifully, and it was a very, very moving occasion.
Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major, Op. 15 (First Movement)
Murray Perahia and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, conducted by Bernard Haitink
Our daughter, Aida, went to the university uh she was at Cambridge and gave a concert. She played this piece beautifully. And I remember sitting next to Olympia and I saw the tears rolling down her cheeks of pride and joy as as our daughter sort of played this piece.
Well, this just conjures up those recent romantic memories. It's Pat Boone's Love Letters in the Sand. I was driving up on a motorway to some political meeting with Rachel and this came on the radio and we felt that somewhere this captured what we were all about.
Là ci darem la manoFavourite
Paul Vincent and Agnesa Totova
This is my elder son Paul and Aggie, my daughter-in-law, singing together, and they're singing in Don Giovanni. This is my favourite opera. I went to Prague with Rachel to listen to Paul singing, the lead role in Don Giovanni, in the States Theatre, which was Mozart's old theatre. So there's a a lot of parental pride as well as musical appreciation in this.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:40If you were to be offered the role of Chancellor [in a hung Parliament], would you take it up?
N not as an individual. I'm not moving away from the Liberal Democrats. I'm very happy with my party. I I hope the outcome of the election is that we would reform the government and I would hopefully be part of it. But I'm certainly not interested in being prized away to work for one of the other parties.
Presenter asks
6:49What sort of character were you as a little boy?
I think probably quite boringly well behaved and got top marks at school and always got, you know, prizes and
Presenter asks
7:13Do you remember [your mother's nervous breakdown] being a difficulty?
Yes, I don't want to exaggerate, but there was no sort of emotional warmth. And there was quite a lot of tension. And I I think probably I just learnt to focus on on the things that I could do, which was basically around school.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The book
Stephen Hawking
I got to page six and hit a brick wall, and it's long been an ambition to understand it … it would enable me to have a proper conversation with my younger son, Hugo
Why at the time did you make that switch [from natural sciences to economics]?
Well, I think it was the closest link with the real world and and the world of politics. And Cambridge Economics at that stage had a very high reputation. Um I I had I had quite a short induction. I didn't do the full economics course so I had to learn very quickly. But later in life I've I've understood the importance of what I was taught even if I didn't fully grasp it at the time.
Presenter asks
18:03Do you remember what your father said when you told him that you planned to marry Olympia?
Well, this was not what he'd intended. It it was it was going to fail. Mixed marriages always failed, he argued. It would outrage the neighbours. Uh what would they think about it? Uh turning out with a uh a lady with a different colour on the doorstep. You know, he just felt sort of disgusted and disappointed and uh didn't want it to have nothing more to do with me.
Presenter asks
24:32Can you recall your feelings on that night [you became an MP]?
Well, it was a great it was. And I was, yeah, obviously elated, but there was a sort of unhappiness in the background because by this stage Olympia was very ill. I mean, she'd had cancer for quite some years, and I was always conscious that there was this lurking in the background. And we didn't talk about it because she didn't want to talk about it. She didn't want it to be known. She didn't want to be regarded as a goner. She was a very feisty person. So I knew that the next few years, although it was great to have finally made it into Parliament, I knew that her health and the problems around that were going to be the dominant issues in my life and hers.
“My father was a good father in one sense, that he did encourage me to talk and debate, though he made it very clear that there was only one view, and that was his.”
“I was a very, very timid, awkward teenager. Um what helped me to get confidence was when I was sixteen I was picked out and given the lead in the school play which was Macbeth and I did learn over a period of months to look at an audience and to communicate and I think ever since then I I've overcome that basic inhibition which very large numbers of people have about standing up in front of a large audience.”
“I am, yes, yes,'cause I've been lucky to have had two very happy marriages, and I like to celebrate both of them.”
“Yes, I'm I'm very romantic. And certainly when I met Rachel and and we became close, I sort of rediscovered in my sort of late fifties all those emotions, love, romance, the things that you thought you've never found again. And it's been a wonderfully happy experience and it's been a wonderful stage of my life.”