The beautiful, talented talented lizza. Seven years of fox news. Publish publish publishes actually thats wrong. Lord daubs has the privilege of being introduced by lisa. [ applause ] good evening. I just realize im going to be the only person on the stage tonight that doesnt have a british accent. But i do have an accent. Yowlver to see if you detect it at some point. More pertinent to the city that were in. If youd ask him had, lord daubs would tell you that he never had a proper job. Yet it was in his restless search, as he calls it, for this ideal job that he just happened, happened to stumble upon some of the most wonderful and rewarding experiences that anyone could ever hope to have in a lifetime. Ones that honored his presence, ones that called upon him as a crafty and skilled story teller, ones that demanded his inquisitive mind and others that rewarded his wonderous creativity. It all began in a pub where i net a complete stranger, lord daubs says about his journey. I happened to mention to him i was looking for a job in current affairs. A little later i discovered a most exceptional Lady Margaret thatcher. A modest lord dobbs may call it tough, particularly those in the media and political world painfully recognize this wonderful trait as perseverance. A job with Margaret Thatcher and four years later he would be the first person to tell her she had had become the Prime Minister and the next day he took her first steps with her across 10 downing street. Was in the selfdescribed state of joblessness that lord dobbs worked as a well regarded bbc anchor, was hired as a newspaper columnist at the washington globe and that was throughout the watergate scandal and recognized as a widely acclaimed global speaker. If only unemployment could be so fruitful for everyone. A prolific author with many acclaimed novels and of course like any lazy mans profile would include, doctorates from harvard and tufts. And of course ive saved the best for last. Whats lord dobbs known for . Nope. Sharing a girlfriend with bill clinton. This is while they were both students at oxford. Lord dobbs was always confused as to why she never introduced the two of them but then he admitted it took many years and an entire president ial scandal to discover why. But you guys are right. So 30 years ago lord dobbs wrote house of cards a political thriller based on the life and vices of a politician most recently taken on by netflix telling the story of congressman frank underwood, the fifth Congressional District and House Majority whips trying to get himself in the place of power in the political world, starring kevin spacey, as you all know. Yes, thats amazing. To date the series has earned 33 prime time emmy award nominations and underscored by all the ingredients of a successful politician whether in washington or westminster. But all stemming from the genius of a man who is humble, talented, quick witted and just plain brilliant. Im blessed with this amazing honor tonight of introducing to you, lord dobbs. [ applause ] lisa, that was one of the most extraordinary and lovely introductions ive had. Thank you so much. What an occasion. I thought i was coming here to a really serious intellectual evening and now i hear that my girlfriend and bill clinton have been dragged in. But it is actually a very serious evening. I cant tell you how honored and privileged i feel to be here in the company of so many people. And then particularly david petraeus. Its an honor to be in the same room. [ applause ] great american. And i want to also thank the churchill family who do so much to keep winstons flame alive. And of course randolph. We owe you so much for all the work that you do and make our joy of winston so much fun. And we heard so many votes of thanks today from Michael Bishop and lawrence gal hew, who thanks to everybody but one thing they havent thanked is themselves. And we eowe them a huge debt of thanks. Mikel and lawrence. [ applause ] for having made our society and our love of winston, not only so much fun but incredibly successful and i cannot tell you how these things dont happen by accident. They happen through a great deal of work and michael, lawrence, its largely been your work. So thank you very much indeed for that. You were talking earlier about lawrence, about whos going to say no to churchill and i was delighted to know you havent said no to a churchill and you and jenny are actually going to be a proper couple very soon and i cant tell you how do d lited i am had about that. [ applause ] do you ever feel youve arrived at it wrong party . I kind of feel like that. Im a writer of fiction and i arrive here to be surrounded by some of the finest historians of our age and the most eminent chuchillians on the planet and i simply write works of fiction and of course writing novels is not a proper job. It was all the fault of Margaret Thatcher. You may remember her. She was it woman who pressed a meet on fronts and he said ive met this woman. She has the lips of Marilyn Monroe and the eyes of caligula. 30 years ago i was her chief of staff. Chief of staff of the conservative party. Sad to say we a tremendous falling out. Theres nothing unique about falling out with margaret. She rather if h eer insisted on. And i remember after the 1987 election when i was sitting beside a Swimming Pool on holiday thinking perhaps i should find myself a new job. In fact margaret rather insisted. And im sitting there beside the Swimming Pool wanting to fill time. I had spare time. That book became house of cards. John major was kind enough to say it had done for his job what dracula had done for baby sitting and it spawned two great careers. Ocart and frank underwood. Fu 1 and fu 2. As i call them. Well, it was a hell of a row with margaret. I must say. But doesnt stop me believing she was probably the greatest peace time Prime Minister britain ever. Look, she led, i bled. So what. But house of cards. It seems to have got around a bit. About 18 months ago i was privileged enough to have a meeting with president xi of china when he came to britain. So i decided to mark it by handing him a signed copy of the original hard back and his face lit up and then he looked at what it was and a frown creased his face and he said what . You have house of cards in this country too . Ive written 20 novels. Ive got kids. Ive written 20 novels over the years. But in all honesty ive most enjoyed writing have been those four novels ive written about winston. My relationship with winston, i regard it as a relationship. I regard him as a friend. As somebody who is very much a part of my life. It began as so many with his funeral. And i was sitting there watching it, those fuzzy black and white images on television. I was watching with my mother. And i remember those images. The gun carriage. The barge, the train. And that extraordinary moment we all remember when the cranes of london dock bowed their head had in respect. What an extraordinary moment. And my mother, throughout the if tire time was weeping silent tears. And i asked myself why is my mother weeping so emotional about a man that she had never met and her tears began a time of inquiry and questioning which led me to a fascination about winston churchill. Not particularly the statesman, a politician, but it man, the flesh and blood man. And i decided i wanted to write about him. I had to ask myself how dare i, a novelist, write about the greatest man in english history, when hes been written about by so many eminent historians over all these years. And winston himself provided me with the answer. With Neville Chamberlain his rival and predecessor, colleague, died. Winston made a wonderful, a beautiful eulogy for his old rival in which he said this. History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past. Trying to reconstruct its scenes to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passions of former days. In other words no matter how hard they try historians can never offer you the full picture. Which led me to the perspective that maybe a novelist working 234ru from it ificide out can try and capture the flesh and blood man, the passions, the tormnts, the trium triumphs, yes, and the fears too. So i started to think of winston as a real person, not just as a cardboard cutout. Winston is an old man. I dived into something called it was an International Churchill society called the dream. I dont know whether we still publish it. It was an extraordinary exposition of the hang ups that winston had, even as an old man, about his father. I wanted to know about winston as the child and so i went to his first school and discovered the extraordinary and actually rather horrid story of his days at st. Georges with that appalling head master he had. A man who is intent on breaking winston. Winst winston, at st. Georges was abused in so many ways. Intellectually, emotionally and quite probably in other ways too. Winston being a naughty boy and he was a naughty boy. He was a pain as a kid. Was discovered one day to have stole an pocket full of sugar from the schools pantry and for that crime he was taken on the head masters study where he was held he was stripped naked. He was held down across the beating block and he was thrashed and he was thrashed and he was thrashed and he was thrashed and he was thrashed not until he was black and blue but until there were wheels and blood on that poor boys body. Now winston i think became very close to being broken at that school. In fact, he was removed from that school, thank goodness, by his nanny, mrs. Everest, when he came back from holiday and she discovered all of the terrible wounds on his body and inhadicisted to his had parents he be removed from that school. He did suffer terribly from that head master. But when you remember that winston was not like most of the rest of us. If i had been treated like that, i would have said just tell me what to do in order to stop this treatment. That wasnt winstons idea. The next occasion that he after that beating, when he was able to find the head master away from the school, he crept in, broke into the head masters study, crept to the back of the door where the head master kept his prized straw boatau. His symbol of authority and winston stole from the back of that door the head masters prize bota and he took it down to the woods in the school and he kicked that the crap out of it. Not bad for an 8yearold boy who had just been so cruelly abused. Winston was an extraordinary individual, even as a young boy. But then i wanted to know about winston, the father. Now imagine, imagine winston sitting at his dining table at checkers on the 7th of december, 1941. An awesome date. He was there with his daughter, sarah, mary and izhad dhis daug law, pamela and he was sitting round it dining table with haurman, the extraordinarily powerful president ial envoy and an understated hero but a superb American Ambassador who is the American Ambassador filling so wonderfully filling the shoes of the departed joe kennedy. Now around that table that evening were the elements in those american friends of britains salvation. They were also the elements of extraordinary personal pain. Because during that dinner the intreped valla, Frank Sawyers brought with him a portable radio and said listen to the news. And that is when winston and the others first heard the news of pearl harbor. The japanese attack on america. Now for winston as a statesman this was everything he had been hoping for. At last he was able to get america involved. But couldnt you imagine the collision of feelings that he must have had when he embraced his had american friends, harriman and winen because they were great, great friends and great allies. But the ost ear and sometimes arrogant haurman was also the lover of pamela and they, he was helping tear her marriage to randolph apart. And winen was in love with sarah and it was to be an unfulfilled love which caused them both great misery and i think eventually contributed to winens suicide a few years later. While winston was rejoicing at the good fortune and it was good fortune, of the events of that day, he must, aall as a father have wept. Its triumph wrapped up in tormnt and that was the flesh and blood side of winston churchill. So much pain and that man experienced so much private pain throughout his life and thats one reason why i think he adopted that policy of kbo, kbo. Just get on with it. Keep blublering on as we heard from that wonderful film last night. Does it have continuing relevance . Of course it does. I mean joe you made this wonderful film and it was a real privilege to be able to see an early sighting of it. Look, to come and present that film in front of this audience, as man, that took curage. But it also brought huge personal enjoyment because not only did i love the film as a work of art, it reminded me your historical consultant was my old professor almost 40 years ago. It reminded me of elizabethilaten and what a wonderful extraordinary woman she was. Very kind with it help she gave me and it also got me thinking of how very long it took to make one trip, one stop in the London Underground in those days. But this is an era today of k. B. O. Just like it was then. So how did winston respond . We saw that in your film, joe. We saw him making what was perhaps one of the greatest speeches ever made in the english language and im not going to do it all because we saw that last night but what he said we shall go on to the end. Not to victory, not success, but to the end because he did not know what the outcome would be. Chilling words in many respects. We shall fight, whatever the cost may be. We shall never surrender. Its the ultimate expression at that time of kbo. Total uncertainty at a time of greatest danger. But he was not, it was not simply an expression of blind stubbornness. It was an example of winston never losing sight of the longer term. Even at time when he was surrounded by chaos. Never lost sight of the longer term or of the deeper game. I think some people call it it vision thing. Because he went on to say this. And we saw that last night too. The closing words of that film. Theyre not so well known that i think its equally important as the earlier remarks. He went on to say that even if this island or a large part of it were to was subgeigated and starving, then our empire beyond the seas would carry on the struggle until in gods good time the new world with all its power and might steps forth to the rescue and deliberation of the old. He knew what it was about. He never lost sight of what he was fighting for. And what was he fighting for . For the survival of our values. Of western values. Values which we shared at that time. We as britain shared at that time with the new world. And you know, even at the time going through all those perils, winston of course won. And today were back in a world of uncertainty and confusion. Politics. Politics, they say its the worlds second oldest profession that takes most of its rules from the first. But i think i really do think winston would be really distressed at what politics has become right at this moment. Where it seems to be all about volume and venom and how disteroused he would be at the lack of magnanimity for politics. Were i think right now were rather like a man bent over, examining his shoe laces because they happen to be untied and being obsessed bay the fact that your shoe laces are untied and of course we have problems but while youre bending over, you expose your vulnerable parts to the rest of the world and thats exactly what we seem to have been doing. Kbo does not mean keep bending over. Now winston, i suspect probably couldnt have seen his shoe laces and he would certainly have never bent down to tie them himself. Raised himself to his full 55 and stood on the corpses of his politicaled aedadversaries and d around and looked ahead, looked to the future as he always did. Even during those dark days of 1940 to 1941. Andee would have seen even today a western world which still, at its full height, when it stands up tall, towers above the rest. And i dont mean to be unkind to any other culture or part of the world but i think its an objective fact its still here in the west we are well, let me put it this way. Im a realest. I have to be. Ive got four kids. But im also an optimist. And i have to be. Ive got four kids. But i cannot think of any other part of the planet where i would have more wanted to have brought up my children and watched them bring up their children than in this part of the world. [ applause ] you know for the last 300 years this part of the world has the western world as had had the most decisive innovations. We have the most world changing inventions. Weve done so much of the inspiration and produced so much of the culture that has marked the progress of humanity and lets say 1,000 years. Why have we been so successful . Not because we have the best politicians. No. But because we have the finest universities. We have the most vibrant culture. We have the rule of law. We have freedom of association. We have freedom of ideas. Tolerance even in this rather awkward age of social media. Which allows us to move forward together. Now of course we have in that time experienced some terrible setbacks. But the march of progress over all those centuries hasnt been inextrkable and we have to put that into context. We are right now in a kbo moment i think. The way ahead seems to be lost in the mist around us. In america there is more Political Division than i think there has ever been in my lifetime. In germany supposed to be the strongest part of europe we have a chancellor who has been humbled recently and much weaker and face as very difficult time ahead. In britain we have mrs. May. Who may not. And that givens me no pleasure to say so. And so much of it rest of europe is in free fall. I mean spain this week, greece last year, greece next year. Italy every other year. Its a very difficult time and brexit. Everybody else today seems to have mentioned brexit so im not going to miss my chance. Winston said youre only require three things of an audience. That they be well educated, well intentions and well oiled. I hope im on to a winner this evening. Particularly with the well oil. Its been so often mentioned and so im going to ask you to take a look beyond kbo. And simply the short term and todays headlines. Now what side would winston have been on . Every side always claimed winston as grab a quote, probably out of context and say winston would have thought this and thought that. Winston had had 65 years. 65 long years and i think he probably said almost everything, probably several times over and the whole idea we can be clear of what winston would have said or thought is nonsense. But i do believe he saw europe in its broadest sense. He saw its history, he vallaued its cultures, its values. Not just its institutions. They come, they change and they go. I think he would have if joyed the imagine you are in a Railway Carriage and a young couple come and sit opposite you and as theyre sitting there and you start applauding. As a german you would sit and take german statistical analysis. As the italian you would joij in. As a greek you would sell tickets and as an irishman you would dance a jig but if you water british you would stair in the window as if absolutely nothing was going on. Except of course if you came from brussels, you would get out a big manual of rules and regulations to make sure theyre doing it properly. But thats antother matter of course the differences that we have in europe, cultures and objective have caused much tension and tor meant over the centuries but those differences have also been the source of an endless out pouring of wonderful culture of music, of literature, of art, sienls, drama, medicine. Architecture and political thinking. And that was europes great role until of course Young America came along and showed us there were other ways to do things too. Now i want to leave a thought in your mind over the future of europe and it may have you reaching for your glasses and i see my Dear Colleague down there, allen. We have different views on this matter. Hell have to indulge me. But yes, theyve caused much tension and turmoil. But the greatest term oil and tragedy i suggest has been caused not by competing nationalism in europe but by the attempt of one authority or ideology or ougautooceracy or bureaucracy to bring about one system in europe and that has been true ever since the days of napoleon. And they have all failed. Now the west has found such great strength in its diversity, not in its uniformity. So what side of the brexit issue would winston have taken . Well, according to joe i watched it very closely. You talked about learning something from making your film. I learned something about watching your film. And i think winston would have said, as he did in your film dont trust establishments, dont trust elites. Trust it people. Take a trip on the train. As he did. I dont expect you all to agree with that but i would ask you to think about it at least. You know we have so many reasons to be optimistic, if only we could raise our eyes from our shoe laces and remember just how good we are. Remember the berlin wall. How it was pulled down. It wasnt destroyed by military might. It was pulled down by the bare hands of millions of ordinary men and women who wanted to be part of us, to share with us what we have and yes, economic advantages but it was so much more than that. It was our freedoms, our values, our dreams. I started with winstons beautiful yeulogy to his predecessor, chamberlain. He went on to say this. Words i think are as relevant today as they ever were. The only guide to a man is his conscience. The only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without the shield because we are so often mocked by it failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations but with this shield, however it fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honor. Winston was a man of honor. A man who never bothered to look at his shoe laces. He was a man of vision. He was a man of dreams, great dreams, dreams that inspired a world and went on to save it for us. So thank you for listening this evening. And may your dreams go with you. [ applause ] sunday on cspans q and a lee edwards chronicles his 60year if volvement in the conservative movement. I met joe mccarthy through my father who was something of a confident to his him and he was a yale fellow well met. He liked to party, liked to drink or two and as long as you didnt talk about communism, you couldnt ask for a more fun guy to be with but hes very serious about that and also someone who did not take advice very well. And he consequently said things and did things that hurt the cause of anticommunism for some time. Ladies and gentlemen, we ended last years conference with a presentation by andrew roberts. And we know a winning formula when we see one. So to introduce andrew this year we have the