Transcription
It's played out worse than we imagined or hoped because the Chinese don't keep their word. This is lovely.
King Charles, then the Prince of Wales, came to stay with us and he had a guy who insisted on making his dry martinis. I said, "I can't have somebody in my own house [music] making dry martinis for my guests." The king certainly drank rather different dry martinis, drier than I'd ever had, and in larger glasses than I normally dared. Cheers.
Some years make careers, others make history. I'm Abby Bennington, and this is Vintage Politics, where journalists, politicians, and thought leaders uncorp the wine they love and the stories that define them. Because in politics, as in wine, every vintage matters.
This week, we're joined by Lord Patton, former governor of Hong Kong, and Tory Grande. Lord Patton, welcome to Hyde.
>> Nice to be with you.
>> Thank you for coming and seeing us on this sunny day. We always ask our guests to bring a bottle of their midweek wine. Now, for purposes of transparency, I brought this wine thinking that this is what you would like because we talked, didn't we, about generous woman, [laughter] >> you can take it home with you because I understand you buy your wines from Majestic. Is that right?
>> Yeah, it is. So what I picked out is a you like a Sovenon Blanc. So I've got the Y series Soven Blanc, but this is actually from uh South Australia, but it is still within the veins of uh the kind of Soven Blanc that I understand you like. And this is something you would have during the midweek.
>> Yeah. Um largely because my wife um doesn't like Chardonnay. We nearly always have Cevin Blanc. And I also like in particular um when I'm in France or I bring some of it home a French so blonde called Minutatu Salon.
>> Okay. A manu salon was originally a sair, but it was kicked out of the by the by the local growers of the appalacon control for sair and they started making their own wine under the label militus salon and I think they're make they make a wonderful white wine and they also make a good red um pino uh and they make a rosé as well. I don't drink rosé but my children and grandchildren no my grandchildren drink rosé by the industrial barrel um but I but I don't really buy that but you sill I have a short story about when I
>> Okay, please share
>> when I when I'd um been drinking it first of all in France I came back and found that um Odd Bins were then selling it and I bought some from Odd Bins. Um I was then occasionally making I was a young backbencher making a bit of money on the side by writing the food and wine column in the Daily Telegraph and I I one day wrote in it that there was this wonderful wine called Menaceu Salon which I very much liked and how reasonably priced it was at Odd Bins. Um then I went back to Odd Bins a few weeks later and asked for a couple of bottles of Misu Salon and the price had sold. I said why the hell is it suddenly more expensive? And the manager, not knowing who I was, said, "Well, some bloody idiot wrote about it in [laughter] the Telegraph."
>> So, you were responsible for that?
>> He was responsible for the price going on. But it is actually um a wonderful wine and um much much cheaper than than SAS, but I I drink quite a bit of it. And indeed, I can buy it at um a Majestic and would be drinking a bottle of it tonight.
>> Oh, right. Either that or or I'd be drinking a um a New Zealand souveniron block like Stella Maria or Ken thingy Bob. I mean the wines that that are made at the northern end of the South Island. Mulbra.
>> Yes.
>> Which I think an amazingly good value.
>> They are. Well, I tell you what, you can take this one home with you.
>> Thank you very much.
>> I'd have that later. A little rundown very briefly of your career. So 1979 uh when Margaret Thatcher became prime minister, you then became shortly after a cabinet minister. You were chairman of the Conservative Party under John Major. Feel free to correct me.
>> When there was a Conservative party,
>> well, we can get into that. You were the last governor of Hong Kong from 1992 to 1997. uh the architect of policing agreements and part of the Good Friday Agreements in Northern Ireland, European Commissioner, chairman of the BBC
>> Trust
>> Trust and Chancellor of Oxford University for 21 years.
>> That's right.
>> And today, that particular period, that time when you were chancellor of Oxford University, is where our wine story begins. Okay. So, I know you don't drink a lot of champagne and I haven't served you champagne, but I have brought uh a beautiful bottle and Matt's going to bring it in of sparkling wine in the traditional champagne method from Oxford. Okay. I wonder if you've heard of it.
>> Not the Balfa one.
>> No. No.
>> Okay. No, I haven't actually. 100 Hills. I used to I I tell you when when I was um at Oxford for many years, I was having to dine and go to receptions twice or three times a week. Um, and the events manager knew um not to bring me champagne because I got fed up with drinking warm sh I'm not very good champagne. So he always used to bring a white white wine while everybody else was drinking champagne. I mean, I'm not I'm not sort of pony about about um what I drink, but I just think um it it's it's it's a defamation of champagne for for you to get it when it's warm and um and slightly sour and being drunk with hundreds of other people.
>> Well, we won't do that today.
>> There is a nice sparkling wine which I got an English sparkling wine I think made by Balfa.
>> Oh,
>> Balfa is a good producer. Well, this particular one is from Oxford and it's their first edition. They started to produce this in 2016, but this is 2018 and I believe it's about 70% pon noir, a little bit of Chardonnay and a long time on the leaves and that dead yeast. So, it should be quite um
>> a nice nose,
>> right? I'll cheers to that. Cheers.
>> Nice nose indeed. It's very nice.
>> It's very nice. It is very nice, isn't it?
>> Yeah. There's a there's a Japanese spirit made near Oxford as well.
>> Is there?
>> Anyway, that's another matter.
>> Well, we thought we'd do we'd do this one because
>> very nice.
>> You were there for quite a while, weren't you? So, 21 years.
>> I was there. I was the first chancellor um to uh retire whilst still alive for 21 years since the Duke of Orand in 1715. And he had had to flee England because he was a Jacobite. So he went to France not in order to sample the wines but in order to have avoid having his head cut off. But until then, chancellors had always um either died um or left much earlier than 21 years.
>> Yeah. I think you're probably one of the top three longest serving chancellors. I think there was one other that was in our lifetime, but before that is not there's not been an awful lot.
>> No, there have not.
>> So, I mean it's quite an achievement in itself. So I think really um as I said this is what they call the first edition and I thought this was a fitting emblem of your career. English in origin, international in outlook and improved by time.
>> Thank you very much indeed. I hope I've been improved by time and going going back. One of the ironies of me being the last governor in the in the British Empire is that my forebears are all Irish. Of course.
>> Of course I've heard about that. And your father was a keen musician as well, wasn't he? just want to stay a little bit with Oxford and ask you a couple of questions because it might not be obvious to people thinking why when this is a program and a um a podcast about wine and politics why why I'm focusing on Oxford and I'm focusing Oxford for a few reasons and and one is that Oxford has had 31 prime ministers in its history and if you compare that to somewhere like Cambridge I think it's more like 14 and the last one I think was Gladstone in 37. Um, why was Oxford so good and is continues to be so good at producing prime ministers, do you think?
>> Um, well, first of all, I don't think Oxford would boast of all of them. Um, I think that there would be some caution in saying how wonderful we thought um, Johnson was. Um but but um uh I think it's probably in part the influence of the Oxford Union on on on society at Oxford. I think it's partly because of um the success of the PPE course, politics, philosophy and and and economics because quite a lot of them when you look through the list did PPE at Oxford. actually quite a few did did classics did great as well which so which makes it more surprising but I think it's just I don't think it's because um I don't think it's a quality matter between Oxford and Cambridge um I mean after all Cambridge in recent years is even better at rowing than Oxford unfortunately um but I was I wasn't supposed to go to Oxford at all when I was at school I was being trained for or taught with the view that I would go to and do the English scholarship ship at Cambridge at um uh where my English master had been. But my history master got in first and in those days you did the English scholarships after um this after the after Christmas and the the history Oxford ones before. Um so he put me in. He was a he was a left-wing Catholic socialist and he'd been greatly influenced by somebody who was subsequently my teacher called Christopher Hill. um who was a probably the one of the two or three best Marxist historians um Marxist and atheist and uh so I went to Oxford by chance while being prepared for doing English at Cambridge. So it was entirely accident and my career has really been a succession of accidents. Um and normally I always said yes to doing things people asked me to do which is um some people have thought unwise but it's given me a varied and interesting career.
>> I just thought it was an interesting way of looking at a university because some people say that Cambridge is more sort of science mathematics f focused but it certainly has to be certainly a kind of a driver for that university. Um, when you look back at your time at Oxford and I understand that you used to have you were a man who used to enjoy having dinners in very much the ceremonial society. How important do you think that dining and political discourse and academia go hand in hand?
>> Well, I think um the importance of dining and wine at Oxford and probably Cambridge is greatly exaggerated. Um even though there are several very rich colleges, I didn't ever find there was very much relationship between the wealth of the college and the how good the food was. Um but there were some you did get some very good wines and particularly it's probably the last institution where people bought spent a lot of money on port um which I don't really drink very much. which I once had to do the um or agreed to do the annual port making dinner in a porto um and they said what what would you like for a fee and I said just going there is nice enough but if you must insist on giving me something I'd like you to give me some bottles of vintage port and they gave me I went away with a with about six different vintage ports and then I of course work a colossal amount of money I didn't really drink them very much. I mean, occasionally at Christmas I might, but I find if I drink more than a bottle or two of more than a bottle or more than a glass a glass or two a port, I get a headache.
>> So, what do you think about this one? I thought it had a lot. It's got it has got many of the telltale sounds of a of a classic um champagne style. Lots but quintessentially English kind of like a slightly baked apple taste. I think
>> it is has got an appleley taste and the nice thing about it is it's it's crisp. Um, which is I think terribly important. I hate I hate champagnes when they become sort ofly sour and
>> sickly and warm.
>> Yeah. Well, we won't dwell on that one too much because I really do need to turn to um perhaps one of your most famous um roles, which was your time as governor of Hong Kong. And um I don't purport to be a fountain of knowledge when it comes to Sino British political discourse, but having sort of looked through all of your some of your diaries and um a lot of work that's been written about that time, I really it couldn't help but try and serve you a wine that that probably would some symbolize that period. So, um, Matt is going to bring in this second wine, which is a red wine because I do know you enjoy a red wine occasion, and we can put that to one side. And I do know that you have had some pretty good clarits in your time, but I thought it would be interesting to try what is now considered to be one of the better producers from China. really.
>> And this is actually a wine from the Himalayas. It's called Celeb. It's produced by two brothers in the Himalayas and it's 100% Cabernet Soven, but it's a bit of a special wine, isn't it, Matt?
>> Yeah. You don't see you don't see these around very often. Um, I think there's a great future in Chinese wine making. It's it's you know, it's baby steps at the moment. Well, one reason why there should be is that I think I'm right in saying that if you look at the sale of of um of the most expensive clar um and brandy and whisies um China's the biggest market
>> huge
>> and um when I was in Hong Kong I drank probably better wines than ever because you you'd go to um a dinner with local Chinese schmillionaires and so on and they'd be bottom uping in in first growth clarity. I mean it was outrageous and people were then and I I don't mean to be rude about them but there were people um with first growth clar which they were drinking mixed with Sprite which is a sort of sin against the Holy Ghost. but also um they were extremely kind and they would give me not least when I left um bottles of wine that were associated with particular years in my life. Now I was born in 1944 and get and getting anyway mid 1940s late 1940s first growth clarrets as a present was um something you had to keep rather than drink >> rather special. I was me I was given um recently I was I was thinking what to take to one of my daughters where we were going to have Christmas lunch and I looked in the cellar and there was um I found quite a lot of chatter Patruse 1997. I said to my daughter, "I'm going to bring you three bottles of Shatter Patruse." And she looked it up and said, "You're doing no such thing." She said, "Put it back. So, put it back and either we'll sell it or you sell it and I'd prefer the money because it was an absolutely outrageous price.
>> Well, I have to say this isn't quite on Patruse level in terms of price, but it is a a very uh special wine. I have a little uh sip and swirl. Some lovely dark buried fruit. Some oak there as well. 100% Cabernet Soven.
>> Oh, it's very nice. Yeah. And that's grown in the Himalayas. is grown in the Himalayas at 2,200 uh meter at meters elevation. So very very high altitude wine. Did you when you were there when we you were there for those five or more years? Did you have much was there much in terms of Chinese wine wine or really did that come later? My my understanding
>> came later. It came later. This is lovely.
>> This is lovely. And uh thank you to Vinurus for for gifting us this to taste today. As I say, it's uh some people describe it as um there are a number of prestigious brands making wine now in China, but they think that this particular wine coming from the Himalayas is one of the truest expressions of of teroir that they've seen coming out of China.
>> So they they presumably get Europeans in to help them.
>> Yes. This was done uh somebody I believe from uh Pavey in Bordeaux came as a a wine consultant to help them make it. Definitely. Yes. often you'll see the kind of international uh wine makers helping these
>> the same things happens and our house in in France is quite near the gyak region and when we first lived there the gyak wines were not very good um and all with the same grape and then a lot of people came in and were using different methods to make the wine you can get almost every grape there now and the wine certainly improved a great Well, not my favorite wine, but it's still
>> But still excellent.
>> Still excellent.
>> Yeah, we are living in a golden era for wine production, I think, just generally.
>> That's really interesting.
>> Yeah, it is an interesting wine and it's a and it's um I think as a 2018, I think it's still got a long long way to go. Lots of lots of
>> nice after taste as well.
>> It does. Beautiful. Um, so can I just talk to you about your time in Hong Kong and this is concept as wine as diplomacy or um, some people also coin a phrase claret and statecraft. How important do you think these things were as a form of soft power during your time?
>> Well, I think that it's it's an idea of diplomacy that um, great things are fixed um, over over some champagne and clarity. I think it's a pretty old-fashioned way way of thinking of diplomacy. I mean, if you were thinking about today, I don't think President Trump drinks anything more alcoholic than Pepsi Cola.
>> No, he doesn't. He's a Diet Coke man. Yes.
>> Yeah. Um I can't imagine anything much worse. It rather suits him. Um, but but it is the exaggeration I think that that diplomats um uh are trained to drink um you know champagne before dinner and then lot of claris and then they can settle the problems of the world a pretty old-fashioned way but it's more important that diplomats can speak language that they can drink wine um and uh but I I have I have had some nice wine and dinners at on diplomatic occasions but I couldn't couldn't actually if you ask me to name them now go through a list um and um it I I I know the embassies in London where um when I used to go to a lot of embassy dinners where you'd think you were going to get a very nice meal um and those where you wouldn't and usually the best embassy for dining and actually for having alcohol was the Japanese embassy where the I think it used to be the case that the Japanese a new Japanese ambassador was able to take with him to London his favorite chef from a from a restaurant or hotel in Tokyo and the result was you at very well and drank some very good wines as well
>> and some fantastic wines coming out of Japan actually Matt and I were talking about it earlier on um so you don't you think the idea and the role of wine in diplomacy is overstated and old-fashioned now.
>> Yeah, I do. I think that um um it it belongs to the era when people thought that um you know Talon and Metanik which solving the problems of the world over dinner. They were actually solving the problems over the world in long and hard bargaining.
>> Okay. Well, I'm sad to hear that because I always like the idea the romantic notion that some great things were were discussed and solved over
>> if you think about some of the great diplomatic feats of this country. McMillan. McMillan of course liked alcohol. I don't mean he was drug he was a drunk but he he drank quite a bit. But McMillan's main key when it came to dealing with the Americans was that they thought he was extremely brave and they knew he had been um in the second world war. In the first world war he was wounded three times. um in the Second World War when he was um a minister for the Middle East working a lot with the Americans. Um he was on a plane with some American diplomats and it came down in flames and everybody was got out and one American had been left in and McMillan went back into the plane and brought him back and it had a huge effect on the Americans attitude to him for years. Not surprisingly, they they regarded him as a incredibly brave man. whether or not he he um he sounded like trolid whiskey was was sort of beside the point. Um, but he was I think our last really great prime minister. Um, and my favorite story about him is when I was my first year at Oxford, he came and gave the main speech since St. St. Catherine's Day dinner and made a speech which which I'd heard many times afterwards about the long hot summer of 1914 before the first world war. And afterwards some of us went back to have a drink with him in the master's lodgings. And uh he went around the room and said, "So what are you what are you all reading?" And the first kid, the first guy said, "Oh, I'm I'm reading um modern languages, sir." He said, "Oh, you mean Latin, do you?" [laughter]
>> My goodness. What did you think an old language was then? Okay. [laughter] Um, there is there is talk that on that day that you sailed out of Hong Kong Harbor that you had a glass of red wine. Do you remember that?
>> I glassed more than one. Now, I can't really remember that, but it would have been um I think probably one of the better clarretts that I've been given by um decent and generous Chinese um supporters. I can't really remember that. Um on Britannia, the wine was perfectly okay. I mean um sort of thing you'd get in a good floating hotel.
>> Very nice. And do you remember that night particularly? I mean the weather was dreadful, wasn't it, as you were pulling out of the
>> It was terrible. Um yes, I do. Um it was uh it was a very emotional occasion not just for me personally and for my family but because Europeans um the west regarded as not just the end of the British Empire but the end of empire which was a European concept or even an American concept to some extent. And uh I remember uh I remember a French Frenchman saying to me how emotional it was for for them. I said why in particular? He said well it reminded me um of uh well of course it was the end of empire for all of us. It was the end of empire for us. It was the end of our time in in Saigon. And I said but Saigon wasn't British. So, so it was um yeah, it was it was a very emotional time and uh it had been a great experience. Um I we became great devotees of of of good Chinese cooking when we were there.
>> I bet you did. Um, and so how do you see things now in Hong Kong? So nearly 30 years on, has it played out in the way you imagined?
>> It's played out worse than we imagined or hoped because the Chinese don't keep their word. They don't keep their word if they don't think it's going to suit them. And truth to tell, they've broken their world on every issue of what was called the joint declaration, which was an agreement between ourselves and uh and China, tabled at the United Nations. And some of those who've spoken up for freedom and freedom of the press and freedom in general um have been incarcerated. One of my friends there, Jimmy Lie, has been in solitary confinement for 5 years. He's diabetic and he's losing his nails and he's not even allowed holy communion to talk about wines. Um, it's sort of vengeful partly because of what he stood for and believed in. Partly because it reminds him of the fact that Hong Kong um as they kept on insisting was not a colonial territory. It was a it was a um an occupied territory. But it what they never go on to say it was occupied by Chinese refugees from communism. Um, and Jimmy Lie um came to Hong Kong with nothing and made a very successful life um because of Hong Kong was a free place and he's now um they will keep him in prison until he dies. I fear he's got a very nice and brave family here. Um, wife and children and they campaign for him and Western parliaments and politicians speak up for him occasionally. But my one of my prized possessions is a wonderful painting he gave me, not by him, but by somebody he collects. I've also got some of his paintings of um of religious scenes. He's become very religious. Um, but I don't um I'm not sure he is I'm not sure I've ever had a drink with him, but I probably could have done.
>> I'm sorry to hear that we don't have better news to to talk of in that respect. But we have uh in the vintage politics, we always have something of somebody's vintage. Now, you shared earlier on you were born in 1944, so hopefully you you don't mind me reiterating that that was uh your year of birth.
>> No, no, no, no, no.
>> Okay. So, what we've done is um I'm just going to let you know we won't be drinking this today, but we will be playing a little game. So, we have got a bottle of something from your year of birth. And Matt is going to bring it in. [laughter]
>> And Matt is going to bring it in. And we're going to play a game about about this particular well Matt
>> Hermitage Grand Champagne Cognac from 194.
>> Blimey, blimey, blimey. Oh, three of my sons-in-law were looking through our cellar one day and they they found some uh brandy and looked it up and um I hate to remember what how much it was valued at those that that'll be
>> Come on, see if you can remember cuz can you tell us anything about this to give you a bit of context? Um, I mean, Hermitage is a one of the oldest family-owned houses still in in the cognac region. Um, so I personally always feel that when you have a family-owned house like this, the the quality of the liquid is always better. They, you know, take a bit more care over it and they don't really have that marketing juggernaut behind them that some of the the larger brands do. Um, I'll be honest, I can't tell you very much about the 1944 vintage, particularly in Kogac. um
>> before late Middle Ages.
>> Obviously, it's still during the the Second World War. So, I find it quite fascinating that these still remain despite what was going on at the time. Um, you know, because you'd think that some of these, you know, they'd either stop producing it entirely or they'd get lost or they'd get bombed or whatever it was. So, yeah, I think it's I think it's amazing.
>> I can sort of smell it from here.
>> Yeah. So, what I thought we'd do is we could play a game and it's a little uncoo. Thank you, Max. to uh have a guess a bit like your daughters and your sons-in-law how much we think this would be to buy today. So, I'm going to give you three options. So, option number one, do you think that this 1944 uh cognac is worth the same equivalent today as an economy return flight to Hong Kong with Air China? So, that's one option. Okay. So that's if we went economy for a week today. Do you think it's the equivalent of dinner, bed, and breakfast at the Manoir Cats in Oxford, which I'm sure you've heard and know of. Or I also hear you you make a mean martini. So if we were to send you on a spirits mixology course for 4 days in London, uh that that's the other option. So, do we think that this is worth a flight to Hong Kong, a dinner, bed and breakfast at Manoir Katison in Oxfordshire, or a 4-day spirits mixology?
>> Well, I don't know that how much I can only guess at how much the first is cost. I can only guess at the mixology course. Um I would think it's probably the same about mounds as uh night of the catches on where I where I have spent um time and it's the most wonderful hotel and very great food.
>> It's shut at the moment but it's opening again next year I understand. So you would be right it is a roughly around the cost of dinner bed and breakfast at Manoar Keton which is in the region of £1,50 post it just uh shutting down for refurbishment. So very good. Very very few of our guests get that.
>> Good. [laughter]
>> Perhaps it shows what a what an appallingly extravagant life I've lived. [laughter]
>> So you're absolutely right.
>> Just the most I'm glad it's reopening. It's a wonderful
>> I have yet to go, but maybe I can. Uh I
>> Good for a sort of anniversary or something.
>> I'm sure it would be actually. Maybe I'll try and do it. Um, before we do our final drink, I need to ask you, of all the roles that you've had, whether it's in Westminster, Brussels, Hong Kong, or the BBC, which of those was the hardest role?
>> Um, Northern Ireland. Um, the most enjoyable was the was Hong Kong. Um, the BBC Trust was frustrating, but I I think the BBC is wonderful. Um, the most difficult job I've had was Northern Ireland and it's the one in a way which I'm proudest of because it re reminded me that um if you aren't sure exactly what to do. It is always always always the case that to do the what you think is the right thing is the right thing to do. And it was a very difficult job and I greatly in I'm greatly proud of what we achieved there. Um because Northern Ireland has been such a disaster in British history in many respects. But I think it's um we helped to um make sure that that fewer policemen were killed and that the police were regarded not as the whole community's um police, not just one side of the community's police. So that's the job I'm proudest of doing and was in many respects the most difficult job. Um
>> what was the what made it so difficult?
>> um the the fact that there were still such divisions between the unionist community and the Catholic community and some people thought you could when it came to things like the name or when it came to things like the emblems you could somehow square the circle and satisfy um both communities at the same time and you never could. you had to take you had to take some risks for in because of decency um and because of values um and there were some people who weren't entirely helpful in doing that like a former Labour politician who's much in the news these days whose name I better not mention so that's the job I'm proudest of doing it was the most difficult I've ever done and my wife and family were very supportive because um for much of the time Uh, I of course had bodyguards.
>> And why won't you mention that politician?
>> He's getting too much attention at the moment. And I think to be um I mean my views of on colored by the fact that somebody once wrote a book about his relationship with me when I came back from Hong Kong and it was called the rise of political lying. and it wasn't me that had been doing the lying.
>> I thought it would be nice to finish on rather than a glass of something sparkling or red or white or what have you to pay homage to uh your time again in Hong Kong. And also I believe you do enjoy uh a martini. Is that right?
>> Absolutely.
>> Now I've got to ask are you a vermouth man or are you not a vamuth? Churchill famously said, uh, you know, I just want to see vermouth looking in the direction of Italy and that's it. He didn't want it in his glass.
>> My dad used to say it was an old line and you just had to have the bottle um casting its shadow over the gin and it's certainly true that you don't want to have too much ver with him. I haven't had yet. I've had gin and tonics with that um and a um French gin I mentioned, but I haven't had a dry martini with it. And I imagine the the fact that there's much stronger taste of juniper will make quite a difference to it. But
>> do do you you prefer a juniper heavy gin?
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. Okay. But I like um uh I don't like gin itself to be too bland. And people don't think it's ridiculous to sniff Jin, but actually you can tell a really good one from from others. Um, but but you know, look, drinking gin, whatever, is quite a good thing at the worst of times. Um, but I I think I think a dry martini is a is um not an acquired taste, but it's it's it's a very important taste. If you think about being in New York and going into a bar at 6:00 and everybody having turned out of their bank or wherever and all standing around the bar order ordering dry martinis before staggering home to Connecticut. It's it's very important part of people some people's
>> well hopefully we won't be staggering anywhere today but we definitely have to try it. So Matt's going to make us that beautiful uh dry martini. Um, I have to ask if if I may, um, you sort of spent much of your life looking at Britain and its place in the world and looking at sort of Ukraine and populism and strategic uncertainty that we're in today. Are you hopeful of better things to come?
>> Well, there's no point in not being hopeful. I think you can only then be disappointed I suppose. But um I tell you one story. I I love the novels of Mick Haron,
>> Slow Horses.
>> Slow Horses and so on.
>> And I started reading them because I was doing a um an interview. I think it was at at a book festival in Bath and I was waiting to go on and I was reading John Larry, a perfect spy, which is not just a great book about espionage, it's a great novel. And somebody the owner of the local bookshop saw me reading this and he said, "Do you like um John Larry?" And I said, "Absolutely." He said, "Why do you like?" He said I said because part it's he's partly about the beginning of British decline and he said well if you like him you'd love Mick Herren who's about British decline further down slow house as it were and I think that we have been unfortunately um in relation to others in decline for years and um it's partly because our economy has been in such a mess but I hope we can sort that out and I have a great deal of sympathy for the present prime minister who I think is trying despite all the difficulties to do his best and I think this is a cut acutely difficult time. I don't want to get talking about um President Trump but it's a it's a particularly difficult time in in liberal democracies to have somebody who's allegedly a free the head of the the head of the free world who doesn't really believe in democracy or the rule of law or a free press. Um JD Vance before he became vice president compared um Trump, he now pretends he didn't um with a fascist and I wouldn't begin to do that, but he's certainly no Democrat. He's an authoritarian and his friends are authoritarians.
>> Yes. Uh we've we've talked about it on the podcast before. It's it's not a it's not a happy state of events. Uh all that is happening. Um, I have to say you mentioned earlier on before we got t talking that you spent a little bit of time with Prince Charles and he was also a fan of the martini. So Matt's going to bring in the martini and I'd love it if you could share your story about this. Oh, look at that. Beautiful.
>> Oh wow. Two bone dry martinis.
>> Bone dry
>> with a twist made using So I picked up in your your comment earlier about a French gin that you like. So, I've used Renee, which is a French gin from Burgundy. It's owned by Emma Watson. Um, or Hermione Granger
>> for the majority. Yeah. Yeah. And her brother Alex.
>> All right.
>> And they make it using upcycled grapes. So, it's a bit more It's a bit more fruit forward. It's not necessarily as juniper. Um, but apparently their family have got a wine- making heritage in Burgundy, so which I didn't know.
>> All right.
>> That's delicious.
>> It's nice, isn't it?
>> It's really, really good.
>> Yeah. Thank you.
>> There you go, Matt. Very talented man. I like martinis.
>> Good way of getting them is learning how to make them.
>> Really, really nice.
>> Yeah.
>> My all I said about dry martini was my dad had taught me to make a dry martini was when I was probably 17 or 18 and he he belonged to the school that thought you should just allow the the the bottle of vermouth to play over the glass rather than to pour very much in. Um, so I've been making it, not very often, but I'd been [clears throat] making it for years. And the King Charles, then the Prince of Wales, came to stay with us and he had a guy who insisted on making his dry martinis. And uh, I said, "You can't I can't have somebody in my own house making dry martinis for my guests." Um, anyway, I realized why. Um, we were going back on Britannia and um, the king then Prince of Wales certainly drank rather different dry martinis drier than I'd ever had and uh in in sub in in larger glasses than I normally dared. He drank doesn't drink in my experience very much wine rather like his mother and his father. Um, but um, they've all liked cocktails, although I think his father preferred Hale. Um, but um, I think it's uh rather refreshing to to have a king who's who can make a or have made for him a good dry martini.
>> Oh, thank you, Matt. This absolutely delicious.
>> Thank you very much. It is lovely.
>> Pleasure.
>> Whilst we're having our martini, I just thought I'd ask you. You used to have uh two dogs, whiskey and soda. Is that right?
>> Yeah, we had um we had we've had a succession of Norfolk terriers and we took two to Hong Kong and they were as you say called whiskey and soda and um um one of them had had bitten um somebody was painting the house while we weren't there and the large house um and he was put in jug for about for a week. Rule of law applies to dogs in Hong Kong as well as to other people that did then. And uh but we came home with these two dogs that Matthew Paris had said were better known in Hong Kong than Lavender and I were. And going out into the street in the morning. Um, we live on Barnes Common, letting the dogs loose and then having to shout to get them back, whiskey, soda. It was rather embarrassing.
>> I bet it was 7:00 8:00 in the morning. So we've now got another one, but he's just called Bobby Robert. Not not drink or spirit related at all.
>> No, I thought that was probably a better game called Patruse. Patruse.
>> I used to know a man who had a dog called Taxi and used to call Taxi across the which I always thought was very amusing. Um, final thought. You've done many, many roles and I went through those. Is there any role in your illustrious career that you wish you could have done?
>> I'd like to have been foreign secretary. I guess I was never going to be prime minister because I was too uh moderate for the right-wing and the conservative party, even if I'd been up to it, which I might not have been. Um but I was I was in effect foreign minister for Europe when I was external relations um commissioner the European Union. So I sat virtually as a foreign minister and uh got to see most of the world in that role and got to see some people who I thought were wonderful and some people I thought were ghastly um like Putin. Um so yeah I did quite a bit of traveling foreign secretary people often said you would have been a great prime minister.
>> Well that's very flattering of them. They probably say that because I wasn't. if you've actually done it. Um, they tend to
>> It never ends well, does it? Not initially, anyway.
>> No, it doesn't normally end well. I suppose it ended quite well for both for for David Cameron and in a way for Blair despite Iraq. Um, it didn't end too badly, but um, it rarely ends very well, particularly if the country is going through a difficult period. um as it is at the moment and I think Starmer is an extremely decent man trying his best. Not an easy job.
>> Not an easy job. Well, thank you very much Lord Patton. Cheers. And rather than to declinism, let's think about positive future. Thank you very much Lord Patton.
>> And it's simply delicious.
>> It is delicious. [music]
>> A big thank you to Hyde restaurant and the team for hosting us. If you enjoyed today's show, make sure you're [music] following us wherever you get your podcasts.