[MUSIC]
So Lord Patton, welcome to Stanford.
And. >> Thanks very much.
I've been here before.
I've lectured a couple of times at the Hoover Institute,
where I think they were slightly nervous about my own brand of conservatism.
>> [LAUGH] >> But I survived in one piece, survived
long enough to go and do one of, do two of the lakeside talks, so it's Bohemia Grove.
So I've been through every sort of anthropological
excitement imaginable in North California.
>> Well, we appreciate you hopping across the pond to join us again today,
and whilst we're spoiled with many a guest throughout the year.
Few have been involved in so many historical moments as your good self nor
worked with so many leaders, ranging from through to the pope.
So we've got quite a lot to cover but I'll try to take a whistle soar through it all.
And perhaps given that the audience is Stanford students we
can start with your role as the chancellor of Oxford, and
given that it's such a historical old educational institute.
How are you ensuring to keep it relevant and
that it continues to attract top global talent?
>> First of all, a word about the role.
Oxford is the oldest university in Britain.
They're not the oldest in Europe or indeed in Europe and Africa.
It's Europe or Africa is and the oldest in Europe probably Paris.
But we're pretty getting on for 900 years.
>> [LAUGH] >> And we have a college which
the professor was called new college, and
it's called New College because it was founded in the 15th century.
13th century. [LAUGH] So it's very, very new.
My old college was founded in the 12th century, and
it celebrates it's 800 or 850th anniversary about every two years.
It's a way of making money.
>> [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH]
There've been a lot of chancellors over the years.
I do point out that at Cambridge,
three of their chancellors have been executed and one has been canonized.
>> [LAUGH] >> Whereas at Oxford,
three have been canonized and only one's been executed.
>> [LAUGH] >> So we've done rather better.
These days, The chancellor is elected by all graduates
and I'm only the fourth since 1935,
Lord Halifax who as ambassador in the States and foreign secretary.
Harold McMillan who was Prime Minister in 1960, Roy Jenkins who
was president of the European commission and probably the greatest reforming
interior home secretary in our politics since the war in 1983.
And I was elected in 2003.
The job is elected for life and
I used to say like the Pope, but I can't say that anymore, so like the Dalai Lama.
I probably can't say that if there are any Chinese representatives present.
And the job is one surrounded by mystery.
Roy Jenkins, my predecessor, used to say it was one in which
Impotence was assuaged by magnificence.
It's been assessed Harold McMillan who was a sort of Edwardian intellectual
used to offer a more metaphysical explanation.
He used to say well as you know, the vice chancellor actually runs the university.
But if you didn't have a Chancellor you couldn't have a Vice Chancellor.
So I'm like a sort of ceremonial monarch.
I'm a constitutional monarch, lot's of ceremonial stuff, lots of fundraising.
I chair selections of new Vice Chancellors.
And generally, try to make a paint of myself with governance of they're not
supportive enough of the University.
The most important thing for us to do at Oxford
is to ensure that we remain a terrific teaching institution.
George Cannon Who I think is one of the great prince's of the American republic.
George Kennan said that teaching at Oxford he thought was incomparable.
And even though it's expensive,
we have to try to keep it that with our tutorial system.
And we have to make sure that we are still
Pushing the boundaries of knowledge as far forward as possible.
Our medical sciences division, there I say this in Stanford,
has come top of the global lead tables for five years running now.
And our math and engineering have got better and better.
One of our senior mathematicians won the Abel Prize this year And
humanities at Oxford are terrific.
I would like for them to be better.
And I'm particularly concerned at the moment that while we can still rise quite
easily with a bit of effort funding for.
Scholarships for graduate studies in sciences and medicine.
It's much more difficult to do so in the humanities.
And that is partly because of the disgraceful way in which
universities tend to be judged in almost an utilitarian fashion these days,
rather than for more general considerations.
To find myself as chancellor occasionally having to make speeches
justifying teaching the humanities is a bit annoying.
But as I always, we teach the humanities because we're humans.
So, my job is to try to ensure that and people continue to
deliver the quality of teaching we require, and the quality of research.
We've just appointed a new vice chancellor
who is Irish American, College Dublin, UCLA, no one is perfect.
>> [LAUGH] >> Harvard.
She was one of Drew Fousts' proteges and when she was the executive dean of
the Advanced Studies there, then ran St.
Andrews in the UK where she among other things had to take on the Royal Golf Club.
And what I will not say because I think it's highly offensive so I want to
make the point that she's the first woman who's ever been Vice-Chancellor of Oxford.
But she is and
she is absolutely terrific, a great expert on international security and
has written, I've spent quite a lot of my life in politics dealing with terrorism.
But I think she's written the best academic studies
of how to deal with terrorism than I've read by anyone.
>> So, on the topic of progressing ideas, and
as we move to what many are calling the new innovation economy and
knowledge based economy, >> Silicon Valley is especially
well placed to do so, but I don't think London's too far behind considering we've
now got our own little bubble of San Francisco.
It's essentially Silicon Valley, New York, and Washington in one.
But as we strive to adopt new technology and innovation.
What hurdles do you think remain for London and the UK to progress and
become a little bit more like Silicon Valley?
>> Well, I think there are two basic ones.
First of all If British politicians aren't worried about
the standard of math in our secondary schools, they should be.
Secondly, I think that we don't have
as natural an innovative culture as exists in the United States.
I was interested yesterday.
One of the young undergraduate who helped to organize my campaign for
governor of, it wasn't even that, the of the university.
It was at the reception we had last night in I said what are you doing here and
he said I'm now the economic.
I'm now the head the economics department at Google.
And, I, [LAUGH] terrific that he's here, but,
I wish that he was, doing something, to promote,
innovative culture in the, in the UK.
So, I think we lack the same innovative culture and we haven't made some of
the investments which would have helped to make us even more competitive.
For example, there is an obvious requirement for
a technology and transport corridor between Oxford and Cambridge,
which together are formidable with a growing and successful
record of spinoff, with a lot of shared Interests.
And I think that governments in the United Kingdom have been
pathetic over the years in investment.
I don't think infrastructure investment has been a great
story in the United States since probably President Eisenhower but
that's perhaps another matter.
But I think infrastructure investment
Improving the level of basic math in schools.
And trying to do more to promote innovation.
I don't think, myself, that that has as much
to do with the tax system as some right wing politicians think.
But there are other things you can do to promote To promote that culture I suspect.
>> I'll skip over the topic of taxes, and it's
interesting around how this innovation has been progressive in many ways.
And yet, the gap between the rich and the poor seem to be increasing over time.
How do you think we can reconcile this progression in a more sustainable manner,
and bring everyone else along?
>> I think that's very interesting, and I guess profoundly
relevant to what's happening in your own >> Domestic politics on
which I'll be blessedly almost silent.
>> [LAUGH] >> But also, on ours as well.
[COUGH] There's a very good book which I read recently.
I think it's called Concrete Economics or Concrete Reality.
Which makes the point that it's a complete fiction that wealth and
prosperity have always been created in the United States by the private sector,
that the government has always been a drag.
Not true.
You start with Alexander Hamilton, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR.
You even look at the period of the long Ike boom and
see a combination of public investment and private endeavor.
So the city on a hill was built by government,
as well as by the private sector.
And >> The boom
which probably lasted into the 60s
saw the genie coefficient, and
you all know what that is, falling to the lowest level in American economic history.
So from 1940, I think about 1946, 47 the Gini
coefficient was moving in the right direction.
And since 1968, it's been going in the other direction.
And I sometimes wonder How American politicians get away with the fact
that there is such an astonishing multiple of CEOs pay to mean or average earnings.
There is I think a lot of evidence that this is because people don't actually know
or the figures are, they can't believe the figures if they're told.
When asked, they think there's a multiple of 30.
They don't the multiple ten times or more that ten times that size.
So I think the levels of social inequity in the United States.
And we've been moving in that direction in the United Kingdom,
are becoming politically hazardous.
And if I had to try to explain one of the reason why for
the rage which helps to sustain, Mr.
Trump's ambitions, I would guess that social equity is a very big reason.
I also think that
there is a relationship between social equity and
the sense people have that globalization is wrecking
their prospects and delivering prosperity everywhere else except America.
It's not, of course, true.
But never the less there is that perception.
And we have that in the United Kingdom as well.
The sense people have that they want to get the world in, or stop the world and
get off.
That they want control over their own lives
in a mythical way, which has never really existed.
And certainly hasn't existed during
first periods of globalization in the 19th century or in the last few years.
In the United Kingdom in the last few weeks we've
seen the near demise of our steel industry, why?
First of all because of the dumping of cheap steel by China,
which is producing about half the total amount of student in the world,
and which saw an increase in steel production of 300% between 2008 and
last year.
The British steel industry, in terms of its competitiveness,
has been Has been completely screwed because of that.
So, who's suffering?
Not just the workers, but
an Indian company which owns the British steel industry.
So, when people talk about controlling their lives, so
they can protect their jobs and family's living standards.
That's not the world we live in anymore even if it has been for the last
few years, and I would wish people were making the case for free trade.
Fair trade, but free trade were making the positive case for
globalization more effectively and more Toughly then they are.
It seems to me that the real One of the most important things,
really the most important thing we should be doing in response to
the competitiveness of globalization, is investing more in our public education and
in the improvement of our public education system.
In my own country in particular, investing in further education,
we've always been really bad at any vocational education,
particularly in comparison with Germany.
So, I think social equity is an important part of this but
only part of a broader nexus of issues,
which touched globalization as well.
>> It's- >> Good old Eisenhower.
>> Well, it's interesting in Europe they often refer to nowadays
is the younger curse around politicians know what to do,
they just don't know how to do it and get reelected.
So now that you're a cross venture and I believe you've referred to yourself as
a liberal internationalist these days as opposed to just a conservative NP,
how do you think about commentary that politics is increasingly orchestrated,
politicians are caught up in opinion polls and
going to focus groups to guide them as to what to do next and
balancing the need to be responsive to the electorate but not just reactionary and
be able to deliver a manifesto to address some of the issues that you just raised?
>> I don't see any point in going into politics
unless you've got strong views about things.
And one of the things I find infinitely depressing is
politicians who have to ask a focus group what they should be concerned about and
then ask another focus group how they should explain their concerns about
whatever the first focus group has told them should be bothering them.
And one of the reasons why I found, I'm not making a political pitch,
I suppose I am really, one of the reasons why I found President Obama
such an attractive human being is he does seem to me when he's talking about
events which really mattered to him like his own identity, and the relationship
between his identity and the political culture in which he has to operate, you
get the sense that this is not something he's had to ask somebody how to express.
I mean I thought the two speeches he gave, the one speech he gave in his pastor's
church before the 2008 election about race in politics,
and the speech he gave a few months ago after the slaughter of
some African American worshipers in a church in the south.
Those speeches were astonishingly powerful because that was him,
because that wasn't some other guy with the yellow legal pad,
and writing the words down, it was authentically him.
So, if you don't have strong views about what society should be like, I mean,
become a chartered accountant and make some money.
>> [LAUGH] Or a venture capitalist.
>> [LAUGH] >> Readjust your views-
>> You can still have very strong views,
but I don't see the point in
going into politics unless you really feel passionately about one or two issues.
What most worries me, well what would most worry me if I was an American citizen
I think, is the extraordinary power of big money in politics.
I mean, I shouldn't mention names, but you know the sort of people I'm talking about.
>> [LAUGH].
>> And quite how the Supreme Court can define
spending huge amounts of untaxed loot on supporting
partisan opinions partly because they suit your own business interests.
How they can define that as covered by
the freedom of speech amendment I simply don't comprehend.
I was very impressed by Justice Scalia's intellect but that seems to me,
to use one of his phrases, what he would have called pure applesauce.
And the sooner there is a Supreme Court which reverses that decision,
I think the better for American democracy.
Those of you who are historians of America, which I'm not,
may regard what I'm about to say as too simplistic but it always seemed to me that
the majesty of the American political system was balancing
a Constitution which established a republic not necessarily a democracy,
with a political system which is democratic.
And in order to balance the two, in order to make the checks and
balances of the first something other than vetoes on action, you do need to have
the ability to compromise, to make consensuses and
so on, which seems to me to be something with a Smithsonian these days.
When I first got involved in politics, it was in an Merrill campaign in New York
in the 1960's, when the Republican party in New York was led by Senator Javits,
Senator Keating, Nelson Rockefeller and John Lindsey.
Can you imagine what the Tea Party would make of that these days?
>> [LAUGH] >> So if we think about
the political actions which you're best known for it's the last colonial Governor
closing the final chapter on the good 'ol British empire,
so, [LAUGH] so when we look back
in terms of the silo British joint declaration it seems though you had
remarkable clarity as to how you'd make progress towards a '97 deadline.
And you stuck with it and
had courage of your convictions despite great outrage from Beijing at the time.
I think they cursed you to 1000 years of hardship.
>> The sentence was remitted subsequently.
>> [LAUGH] >> But it's been reinstated given what
I've been saying about students in Hong Kong but that's another matter.
>> And even some of the former Brits who are out there weren't supportive,
and then the stock exchange collapsed.
What gave you that courage to go on despite the naysayers and
the follow through on the actions?
>> I've always felt most comfortable in politics when,
and forgive this, maybe, if this sounds a bit sanctimonious,
when I've thought that what I was doing was not only the right thing to do but
the right, and it seemed to me that we had made promises
to people in Hong Kong which we were creeping away from.
About a month or six weeks before I left Hong Kong,
I was visiting as Governor, a hospital for
the mentally ill, and it was in a series of low bungalows,
each of them fenced in with a sauntiere,
with a passage through the middle, and I'm walking along and
a very, very well dressed Chinese chap in a three piece suit,
gray suit, and wearing I think I remember a Homburg,
Governor Patten, Governor Patten, he says, and
to the horror of my staff I walked across and talked to him.
And he was incredibly polite, it's always lethal when people are polite.
And he said Governor Patten, can you explain this to me,
you very often [INAUDIBLE] British colleagues
about Britain being the oldest democracy in the world.
I nervously agreed.
So he said, can you explain this to me?
Why is it that you're handing over the last British colony
to the last great communist tyranny in the world?
Without ever consulting the people about it.
So, here was the sanest man in Hong Kong.
Who was in the hospital for the mentally ill.
[LAUGH] There was actually
no alternative but the transfer of sovereignty in Hong Kong.
And Hong Kong, or most of Hong Kong Had been only taken on a lease.
And the terms in which both the lease had been negotiated and
the grant of the rest of the home call had been made
were clearly matters of 19th century history,
which nobody would seek to justify in the 20th or 21st century.
There's a period when
Weston powers not least the United Kingdom were trying to globalize
China and buy opening into the opium trade.
I mean this is not something And
even Queen Victoria found particularly attractive.
And so we have now alternative but
to hand Hong Kong back to China
but we'd undertaken will the chinese agreement
that Hong Kong would be guaranteed that it's way of life,
due process, freedom of speech, freedom of worship, rule of.
And so on would carry on for 50 years after 1997.
And to be kind to China it may be that they
were conceptual difficulties.
Let me give you an example.
I got excessively praised for rather limited things I did
on democracy because I was operating within Very strict,
agreed guidelines.
But I was trying to ensure that elections were at least free and fair.
And one of my critics, who is a spokesman for For Beijing.
Perfectly nice chap said to me you don't seem to understand our position.
We're not at all against free and fair elections.
We just want to know the result in advance.
>> [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] And
I realized at that point that we were not going to have an easy way of
connecting, of reaching agreement.
And I sometimes actually think that it's that it is quite difficult for
people with my sort of background small pluralist and so on,
to really understand that Chinese communist mindset.
I don't necessarily say Chinese mindset because you can think of lots of Chinese
communities which are profoundly The liberal imperialist.
What's only been worry about what's happened subsequently, is that
those in Hong Kong who feel primarily Chinese.
Also want Beijing to understand that
they feel that they're Hong Kong Chinese, that they have
a sense of citizenship which may not be as powerful as their sense of Chineseness,
but in terms of the complexity of their identity It's really important.
And to some extent, trampling that
under foot is the crudest Beijing has done, recently.
I think presents President Xi's arrival.
I think that's been really counterproductive.
I went with my wife to an Oxford alumni gathering in
Hong Kong this time last year, no this time two years ago.
And I was coming out of receptions and meetings and there would be 100 or
200 students, a lot of them who had hardly been born
when I left Hong Kong Singing Rule Britannia and God Save the Queen.
And I mean it was terrific for my reputation in Oxford I can tell you.
>> [LAUGH] >> But
you could understand how provocative it would have been
to the governing authorities in China.
And that's their fault, it's really unnecessary and
silly that they provoke that sort of We have some.
But I have huge respect for
the students who were demonstrating 18 months ago for democracy.
With the most extraordinary politeness and good manners imaginable.
It's something that you've been involved in conflict resolution across conflicts,
also in the bulkins as well as northern Ireland and
as developing officer with the Ethiopian sedan.
It seems that you're very good at bringing all parties to the table, and
giving incentive.
Most notably with the book,a dn
encouraging raising change by suggesting membership of the EU.
How do you think through this kind of carotene stick approach to resolution,
and are there any common take away you'd share with us as to
progressing discussions in the heat of the moment.
And moving things forward.
>> I've become obsessed, over the years, with identity politics.
And how lethal identity politics can be.
I've worked in Northern Ireland.
I've worked in the Balkans.
I've worked in the Middle East.
I've worked in Asia.
And the extent to which
when people identify themselves with a very simple pure blooded set of loyalties.
When that turns into a facility to imagine
that they're being victimized when the rather crude and
simple sentiments of whip top by Demi Gods, it nearly always leads to disaster.
The most difficult job I did was actually after the Good Friday agreement, which to
Tony Blast's credits and my [INAUDIBLE] credit, they manage to negotiate.
The one thing that nobody could agree about was policing.
The police force in Northern Ireland at the time,
was regarded as an arm of a Protestant state.
Northern Ireland was probably 53%,
52%, Protestant, and 47, 48% Catholics.
The police force, was 93% Protestant, and 7% Catholic.
And that was plainly, not something that
could survive in a new Northern Ireland.
Resolving that issue involved a lot of things
that were politically very difficult, but
it seemed to me that these were corners you couldn't cut.
You actually have to, you actually had to,
face up to the, difficulties of changing names, of changing symbols.
And, we did that.
And at the time, there were roars of, disapproval from the units, but
it's lasted.
And one result, is that today, the police service in Northern Ireland is pretty well
30-35% Catholic and the rest Protestant.
I mean, it's been a real transformation and providing.
So first of all,
I think you have to stand up to the rougher side of identity politics.
Secondly, you have to provide a political context in which people can
extract themselves from the corners of rooms they've painted themselves into, or
get off hooks.
Something I used to get annoyed about when negotiating with Chinese interlocutors.
They were always saying to me, but you've got to understand we've got face.
You got to learn to save, where we need to have our safe face.
I used to say to them I've got bloody face too.
[LAUGH] You've got to understand other people have
face which needs to be taken account of when I was European Commissioner.
Mr. Aznar, the then Prime Minister of
Spain, a pretty tough fellow,
asked to see me because he'd heard that I had worked in Northern Island.
And he was reading across to the situation into the bass country.
And the terrorism of Etta and
he wanted to know what I thought should be done about policing in Spain in order to
help undermine Etta.
And I started.
I went into my spill about the political background in northern Ireland and
what we've done on issues like housing and local government and job creation.
I could see him glazing over, because I didn't have a simple, hard,
sock it to him Response.
So there's always a context between what you try to create but
ultimately you actually have to stand up to the worst sort of identity politics.
There's a fantastic book, it was a regular book on identity politics by Matthew San.
There's another very good one by a French novelist called Amin Maalouf,
who has won the Goncourt and several other prizes.
I think his main novel was called, The Rock of Tanios.
And was actually born in Lebanon,
Arab Christian, writes in French, now lives in France.
And he's written a brilliant book about the complexities of identity.
You think about your identities, I've thought about mine, Irish,
lower to middle class, Catholic, Tory,
what my Irish forebears would have thought about me being a colonial governor.
[LAUGH] But
my great grandfather was born in Ireland in 1829, left Ireland during the famine.
So we all have these complicated identities ourselves.
And Maloof says at the end of his extraordinarily tough
on tackling identity politics says that normally when you're a writer.
You hope that in the future, your grandsons,
granddaughters will take books off the shelf and think this is a wonderful book.
Gosh, did our grandfather really write this?
He said his hope was that when his grandson took, I think it's called
the Pursuit of Identity or the Question of Identity and takes it off the shelf.
He'll look at it and
think, my goodness did people have to write books about this in those days.
So, it's a tall order but
I hope that identity politics is something that we can start to.
Illuminate even while comprehending the complexities
of other people's identity and the importance to other people should
have an identity which is respected and is given the dignity it deserves.
>> So on the topic of shaping identity,
you later went on to be the chairman of a media review for the Pope.
Now considering that they announce their election results through smoke signals.
I'm not quite so sure how one goes about reviewing the digital media policy and
coming up with Twitter and so forth.
But can you talk a little bit about How that came about and
the effect you think its had, and the drive and reaches achieved.
>> Well the message, the invitation was of course brought by Dove.
[LAUGH] Carry on Dove, yes.
I was quite surprised to be asked to do it but jumped at it.
I'm a cradle Catholic, and I'm a huge admirer of this pope.
And I'm what would be regarded as a fairly liberal character.
I didn't think the Arch Bishop of San Francisco would have
much truck with some of my opinions.
So a great admirer thought that it
was a pity that a man who was probably the best communicator
in the world had a pretty, to put it mildly,
archaic way of Communicating.
I mean the budgets in the Vatican when we started work was pretty well,
92% spent on a newspaper, the Observatory Romano.
And on radio and we all know
that most people getting their information on television and social media.
So actually even from that sort of fundamental point of view there
was a lot to be done.
I had a very good team including a brilliant
social media expert who just happens to be An ex-banker, but
now a member of the Dominicans.
A great French priest, called Eric Celobere, and a very,
very good group of others from outside.
Two excellent women, a German and
a Spanish, and we've put together a series of proposals,
which the Pope, which His Holiness, accepted.
And established a team of Italians to implement.
So, I hope it's.
[LAUGH].
There was no footnote to that observation,
but I hope it goes well.
It's very important that it should,
to be fair to the person who's leading this team.
He's been head of Vatican television for a long time, and
the technical competence of Vatican television is extraordinarily high.
But it does matter, it particularly matters that
people are getting the sort of social media messages which they require.
When I want to know what the time of Mass,
or I look it up as I would look up Trailer for films.
And I think most people are like that and
they're slightly surprised when they can't get the information that they want.
He is a remarkable man and
we must all hope he survives.
I used to have my meetings in the Santa Marcia which is the.
Hostel that he lives in.
And one day we'd had a meeting and we were having lunch and
it was his birthday, so it would have been December 2014, I suppose.
And he's sitting with cleaning ladies and the lavatory attendants and
the cooks having his birthday lunch.
And I said to the very nice Irish priest who was looking after me,
that it was a terrific, terrific size.
And he said, yes, you haven't heard the best of it though.
He said as his popemobile was crossing St.
Peter's Square, he was stopped by a group of
Argentinean pilgrims with a bowl of that herbal drink Mate.
Which some of you may love, I might say I prefer a dry martini, anyway.
[LAUGH].
He's handed the Mate and takes a great swig out of it and
his detectives, his bodyguard says,
heavenly father, you must never do that.
You never take a drink from people in the streets, it could be poison.
So the Pope had replied apparently, what's the matter he said,
they were pilgrims, not Cardinals.
[LAUGH].
So, we must hope he survives.
So, I think with that I'll turn to the audience for questions.
And I believe we have a couple of microphones roaming around.
Selena, don't know if you have a question from Twitter to start?
Let's start with a question from Twitter.
So a lot of us have worked with very different managers,
but what was it like working with the Pope and the queen?
[COUGH] Different sexes.
>> [LAUGH] >> I must say,
just one point on that which is not irrelevant.
When I first went to one of the Pope's private Masses,
I said to my secretary, I'm a priest, how does this differ
from what it would have been like under previous popes?
And he said, easy, he said, there are women on the altar.
The Pope.
I'll tell you one similarity.
And I don't want to be accused of leze-majeste,
either in its ecclesiastical form or its less spiritual form.
They're best, quite simple and straightforward,
neither of them remotely grand.
When I had conversations with Pope Francis and
when it was business it would be a one-on-one.
Or one with an interpreter because my Italian isn't as good as it should be.
No other people around in a simple,
rather a dreary, little waiting room in the Santa Marta.
Not sort of lots of purple and scarlet and
sashes and berettas and so on.
Similarly, when you see the queen,
she's perfectly normal and straightforward.
She starts the day, as most of us do in Britain,
listening to the BBC radio [LAUGH] Today program.
And she is what you would have expected
of somebody born in the 1930s,
yeah, just, or 20s, English,
well British, upper class.
She starts with those opinions, which have been modified over
the years by the number of Prime Ministers she had seen come and
go, and the number of members of the public she's met.
The extraordinary thing is that for somebody of her age, and
how enthusiastically she cares about her public duties.
Having had to do a bit of that as a colonial governor, it can be pretty boring
and she never gives that impression that also.
What they both exemplify is a very old fashioned virtue
which I hope exists, I mean I've done some jumps in business.
But I hope exists in business, or should exist in everybody's life and
makes things easier, they both have a sense of duty and obligation.
And maybe if only as citizens that's something which we should feel.
So they're perfectly normal to deal with.
And quite funny.
That's great.
The queen has a very good sense of humor.
So your next question.
Hi, Lord Patten, thank you so much for your speech today,
my name is I'm a second year MBA student.
I have a question regarding, since you're Tory,
I was wondering if you comment a little bit about how the recent release of
the Panama Papers would have on the Cameron government.
And also, given that you spoke very eloquently about social inequity,
looking back at the previous few governments.
The Prime Ministers, the Deputy Prime Ministers, Nick Clegg,
David Cameron, Tony Blair, they all belong to the Oxbridge elite.
And do you think that kind of social stratification
is going to continue going forward?
Second question is, if you were able to talk to the presidency right now.
I think we will start with those, that was all ready two just there.
So if we start with those two pretty meaty questions.
Let me deal with the second one first.
It's true that there are a huge number of British Prime Ministers and
Ministers, and Members of Parliament And
judges, and senior executives, and
editors of newspapers of left, right, and center.
Huge number of people who
run things in United Kingdom who went to Oxford and Cambridge.
And why is that?
The reason is that Oxford and Cambridge along with
Imperial and UCL and Kings College London
are the best universities and the toughest ones to get into.
It shouldn't be a surprise that the people who go look
it's too very large in the United States.
It shouldn't be a surprise that the people who are smart enough to go to the toughest
universities go on to get to the top end of their careers.
I think we have an establishment, which is overwhelmingly meritocratic.
It's overwhelmingly based on competence rather
than connections they're connections can come into it.
But I'm nowadays described by the, by the popular press as a Tory Grandee.
My mother who was not unknown to be a bit of a It's unfair to say social climate,
but you like to think that she was cut off the slightly classier block.
My mother would have been delighted to hear me called Tory grandee.
Here I am, my dad was a professional drummer in a jazz band.
We lived in a semi detached house in
a part of London suburbs which was on the margins between lower and middle class.
And, I went on the scholarship to secondary schools,
I went on the scholarship when I was 16 from my secondary school to Oxford.
I'm a scholarship boy and I found myself
in my life doing jobs surrounded by the scholarship boys.
That is true, that's David Cameron is an old attorney on
But his predecessor was a Scottish grammar school boy.
His predecessor was at a rather grim school in Scotland.
His predecessor John Major left school at 16.
And his father sold garden gnomes.
His first job interview was to become a bus conductor and he was turned down.
He predecessor was Margaret Thatcher,
whose father ran a grocery, and was a scholarship girl.
Her predecessor I could go on, as of the conservative party but
as the son of a small building merchant.
My wife used to stay with some friends in the town where we worked
and whenever the lavatories were blocked they'd send for Ted Heath's father.
So, I think we're a much more socially mobile
society and it's not surprising that people from one of the most
difficult universities to get into finish up doing some of the toughest jobs.
But, what is incredibly important for
any meritocracy is to ensure that it recognizes
that there are even broader ladders behind it in order to let people climb up them.
What's incredibly important for people like me.
And others is to recognize the role of the state in helping us up the ladders.
And to recognize that the state is still required to help people from poorer and
more disadvantaged backgrounds and to get onto the matter.
And to rise up it.
So, I think meritocracies have to be benign and sensitive to the interests
of those who are coming after them if they're going to justify themselves.
On the Panama Papers, the Prime Minister I mean,
this has all happened since I've been away, but as I understand it.
His father had established a trust from which
his family benefited
when he died, as well as benefited.
I don't think anybody has suggested it was a way of evading tax.
Or covering up the billions that you'd earned as was the case with Mr Putin
for example.
And I think I'm right in saying it's the sort of trust,
which if you're an American citizen, you don't have to go to Panama to set
up because there are at least two American states where you can do it anyway.
I read Fareed Zakaria this week on why there were no American
names in the Panama Papers, and his argument was, well,
you don't have to do that if you're an American.
I think undoubtedly Cameron will suffer from a bit for
people being reminded that he was a rich toff.
And I'm not quite sure how long that lasts, and I regard
wealth envy as one of the less pleasant aspects of living in a democracy.
>> [INAUDIBLE] I have the privilege of asking the last question.
And you wrote a book, What Next for the 21st Century?
And then that's kind of a question that many of us,
especially second year student here, asking ourselves.
So what are the big problems that you see that some of us should put our minds to,
to start solving for or
what pearls of wisdom would you like to share with us to close?
>> I sent a copy of my book,
What Next, to the then chancellor of Cambridge University, who was
the Duke of Edinburgh the Queen's husband >> And
he was well into his 80s now well into the 90s and he sent me back
a handwritten reply saying what next question mark.
When you my age is there ever one answer.
[LAUGH] [LAUGH]
>> It's probably.
>> What next I tell you what I find surprising and
I think it's going to be the sort key, the sort of nodal issue in the next few years.
Most of us understand.
Most of us recognize intellectually that very
few of the problems that weigh on our society,
very few of the problems that confront our societies
could be dealt with by individual countries.
And yet at the same time, the enthusiasm for
international corporations to tackle those
problems has waned significantly.
So whether you're talking about epidemic disease or
international economic issues, trade or environmental issues,
or trafficking human beings, or trafficking guns.
None of those issues can be tackled unless there is cooperation and
while that is true, the support for
shared sovereignty, for shared policy making has declined significantly.
I think it's a real problem.
I think here in the United States, you have
a difficulty that the republicans believe in free trade, but
not in the institutions which are necessary in order to sustain it.
And the democrats believe in the institutions but not in the free trade
I think there are similar problems in other countries.
So I think reigniting a belief in
international cooperation, in international institutions,
to give credibility and legitimacy to that cooperation.
I think that is hugely important and
should be invested with a degree of hope,
which doesn't exist.
I think one of the things great universities like this one should do,
exist to do is to provide hope.
At the end of one of the most remarkable books
about international relations I've read,
Henry Kissinger's book on diplomacy which was written in the 1990s,
whenever people think about Henry Kissinger's record in government he's
an extraordinary fine historian.
And he's written, Diplomacy is a book about
the post-war settlement, the great contribution of
United States to the world after 1945, with some help from Europe.
The way that had brought peace, certainly in Europe, for
a longer period then anything since the congress of Vienna.
And he writes at the end about how that's shaking to pieces,
the point I've just made and he quotes
an old Spanish proverb, traveler where is the road,
don't ask where the road is, roads are made by walking.
And I think it's the role of universities to do some of the walking and
to show us where the roads are.
And I can think of know better or more important a task for
universities or for university teachers or for university students.
The last thing you should do it at a university is,
I think that it's somewhere where you can go to be safe or protected from the world.
And I can make one last controversial point.
I think it's an oxymoron
to talk about universities and safes basis in the same breath.
And I think universities are all about challenge and finding those roads,
and which will get us from one predicament to another,
because that's what being alive's all about.
>> That a delightful note in which to end, we'll all get out and walk and
chatter and path.
So please join me in welcoming, thanking.
>> [APPLAUSE] [MUSIC]