Something to do with it. He was the 1st to give Boris Johnson a welcome to downing street it was said mark sedwill state is a well good morning everybody a man who sits beside the Prime Minister as his most senior Civil Servant will see and serve no longer arguably the greatest Television Series about Civil Servants and postwar british democracy is a comedy called yes minister praised for its authenticity by Prime Ministers it is set to return this year in a fashion 40 years after its 1st episode joining me via skype from new york is its cocreator the multi Award Winning film director producer writer and actor jonathan lin thank you so much for joining becoming on so for those who have seen us minister around the world hacker would be Boris Johnson so mark sedwill would be so humphrey up will be what did you make of the head of britains Civil Service quitting this week well im not sure he actually. Which he announced his intention to in as an injection too but i mean obviously hes pushed abelard about it because yes minister and the escarpments it was about the conflict between politicians and Civil Servants and whos going to run the country. And politicians viewed Civil Servants as elitist. Nonelected group of people who are running the country in what they thought was either their own interests or the country of trust. And that they were not responsive to the politicians who represented the electorate and the Civil Servants to do that the politicians were short term grabbers who would do anything to win the next election. Those are true but fuser true. Both i tell you what though in one of your episodes and she doesnt merge in the series Dorothy Wainwright who has a special advisor now i have to tell you going on the guy was one of the few programs invited to an event read only cummings spoke relatively recently Tony Cummings presumably is the Dorothy Wainwright character what have you made of Dominic Cummings is role in government and his ability seemingly to be much better than your special advisor character well i dont know i mean our special advisor and that of the wainwright is based on Marcia Williams later lady folk and who is harolds political secretary and who had an extraordinary influence over her wilson and it was very seldom that he went to guess or advice. She wasnt really interested in policy she was interested in the mechanics of government. I think thats rather like Dominic Cummings though he is a bit interested in policy italys mainly interested in. Gettig powerful. Even more Civil Servants but it not even those who have been trained in the job so people like him who come in from the outside albeit as a clos dimension presumably we have the creator of Downton Abbey on this program a while back who is talking about the mocks astelin prints to Downton Abbey what do you make of the accusations this is an oxbridge class of the special advisers that are influencing democracy here in britain as a humphrey who you know was oxbridge so as bernard woolley. Its changed a bit over the years senior Civil Servants and now not all oxbridge but a lot of them still law and of course our politicians at the moment are dominated not only by oxbridge but also by aten our government. So its really want to elite dealing with another elite and theyre all struggling for power its a question of whether you believe that the politicians whether you are on the side of the politicians because they represent those as if they do oh youre on the side of the Civil Servants because they can handle the politicians arrogant and ignorant behavior even though there are 2 opposing opinions about the very heart of what is what it means to be a democracy what it means to be a democracy is to have the legitimate collision of vested interests. If we all agreed there would be no need for democracy there would be no need for voting if we all agreed i think you tell a story about how your series is going to say yes Prime Minister were seen as anti british and and t. O. Western democratic when they were taken to the u. S. S. R. And to china when in fact you are affirming actually these are serious about power and democracy and government i think the reason why the soviet union in those days showed yes minister was because the to people on the government thought it was anti democratic and the people thought it was actually a bureaucratic western democracy has many folks but it is none the less the best system thats been arrived at as compared to any sort of authoritarian government in my opinion of course im sure people watching in iraq syria libya afghanistan across latin america and africa may beg to differ maybe though given the wars the illegal wars by these western democracies yes clearly the wars by everybody and mean the the russia recently invaded ukraine and took crimea russia invaded afghanistan at the time we were doing yes minister. Everybody has illegal wars im afraid i see no intrinsic difference my father used to how to great distrust of politicians and he always used to quote from the bible the song of solomon. And the quotation was put not by trust in princes know their faith in chains i think this truth of that i mean i have a distrust of people who want to have power over their fellow citizens i think that applies to just about every country in the world i hold no brief for all the illegal wars that america britain and other western countries have been involved in but i hold no brief for the illegal wars that many of the rest of many countries in the rest of the world have been involved in either but of course the skepticism of power is often seen as crucial to journalism i have to tell you that the dominant cummings has been briefing the murdoch times apparently saying he has never been briefing against the mark sedwill so how does the press relate to these different issues because im i mean some free was often briefed against sometimes by a hacker in a yes minister everybody briefs against everybody else and yes minister and in the real world. You know the ship of state is the only ship that leaks from the top what do you think some free would have done if acker had tried to dispose of him well i think he would have pointed out and the politicians have no idea that how to get anything done without Civil Servants on the top of them all by getting were by this demonizing of the Civil Service. Theyre losing one of their main alibis which is you know that they need an excuse every 3 or 4 years when theres no election as to why they didnt keep their promises and the City Services that weve been a very good media excuse for that. In the last 48 hours or no if if if they castrate the Civil Service they will lose that excuse and then have to actually account for why they dont keep their promises you think Prime MinisterBoris Johnson realizes is lost as well if you read my letter to the times he said so then yes otherwise no. It well. Obviously yes minister explained in detail the problems the illusions the contradictions of the European Union as is now. What would you have done then if the Civil Service was sabotaging a democratically voted for bracks it as its been. Many m. P. s have told us on this program that thats what was going on for the past 4 years. I think thats an oversimplification i think. And one sensible democratically voted for brets it. But there was no plan it was simply a yes or no vote nobody who voted had any idea of what they were voting for in reality. The most asked question on google day after the referendum result was what is the e. U. A small majority of people voted in favor of greggs it and they were voting for all kinds of things they were basically voting against the government against big left out they were voting against unemployment well many beg to differ about that when your show hacker regularly invokes churchill as being the iconic. Politician and now we have Boris Johnson quoting f. D. R. When it comes to coronavirus what do you made of his grand gestures as it were of him comparing himself to f. D. R. Or Boris Yeltsin wrote a biography of churchill and would like to think of himself as a great that. Calls are divided views about how great a man churchill was when he set a very great from 1942944. And boris sees him self in that light or would like to or would hope to. From there its a short step to seeing himself as resolute. Theres theres no shortage of delusions of grandeur on the part of people who governance i mean your fictional Prime Minister and minister i mean hes often free infuriated frustrated do you think he would have handled coronavirus differently i mean Boris Johnson he said in public he would shake hands with infected coronavirus patients not something the hacker would have done presumably oh no hachim was far too timid for that. And probably most sensible. I think forest didnt handle it well whether or not thats a question of how much bad scientific advice he got from the stuff i mean they say that if he hadnt stuck to the lock on in britain we thought to earlier there would be many fewer infections and deaths but i dont know i mean the the interesting thing to me is that the 3 countries the folk on trees with the worst care on a virus problem other than china are started a britain america russia and brazil. They dont have a lot in common politically. They all just. Made mistakes about how would appear all those countries say their handling handling the crisis well given that any one of the most obvious jobs as hes had lately well you know its a catastrophe jonathan ill stop you there more from the cocreator of yes minister after this break plus is russia really a democracy given nato nation media is all but damn Vladimir Putin has an enemy dictated to be threatened with the full force of its nuclear and conventional forces we investigate the alleged putin paradox after this week 65 percent plus the well meaning victory for the president in the russian referendum only small coming up to him going underground. Secret prisons are not usually what comes to mind when thinking about europe however he even the most prosperous can be deceived within this zeros on the way to view houses were. Preserved was located only people had access to the story investigators covered the darkest dealings of the secret services but i mean. You great ignore. For. Crying for justice. Guys or financial survival. You reduce the price. Well reduce the hour. Thats undercutting whats good for market its not good for the global economy. Time after time corporations repeat the same mantra sustainability its very important its accelerating the transition to sustainable transport sustainability. A more equitable. And sustainable world. They claim their production is completely harmless disapprove the color of. The big one to have got it done because the models not didnt design the Prison Companies want us to feel good about buying their products while the damage is being done far away this is something all this must be done even and i mean. This is the movie you listen to do dont even and im stunting then we believe that understood with who is going to. Welcome back im still with us mr cocreator jonathan are given that Prime Minister since that sure what your program as far as we know loved it saw its authenticity why do you think more Prime Ministers didnt take to heart some of the. Arguably horrific contradictions that i set out in it i mean for instance Trident Nuclear weapons local government and education and health care i have absolutely no idea politicians loved loved the program because politicians like seeing themselves on television or versions it alls well and theyre really only interested in politics but surely everything in the show was either true or certainly could have. And i think this is actually a thought of all the politicians who spoke about the portrayal of the Civil Servants was that accurate servants felt the exact reverse. What do they think now well i dont know i always thought tribe was a complete waste of money. And if that money had been spent then many of other britains economic problems for the been solved but that wasnt a right or left position i mean sure if you know who you know who i thought was despicable a number of ways was also against the british independent Nuclear Terror its very easy for all of these issues to be boiled down to is a labor of government or opposition but there are always nuances you know crowded with the right wing conservative politician and also unionists its 40 years on i understand that there was supposed to be a revival of something called im sorry Prime Minister i cant quite remember just tell me a little bit about that project whether its going to be this year well no that wasnt a television thats a stage play. That i wrote late last year on which was going into production which im very pleased with its about jim hacker and humphrey in the eightys and jim is now a lot happier and last year of half a college oxford. And he got endowment for the college from a russian oligarch. Many years ago and nobody thought that would be a problem and now the college is trying to push him out because hes been saying all kinds of things that are politically incorrect so he funds a humphrey who is now a resident and sent him from his home for the elderly drainage and he gets humphrey to come over to try and help him keep his job its about these 2 old men who used to have power. And used to be at the center world events and now a completely ignored nobody cares what they think and they dont understand why the world of business upside down well what happens when you get to be old and trickle powerless john the land here. And here. In the past 72 hours rusher amidst a pandemic voted in favor of president putin as biggest shakeup of the constitution in 1903 and his russian relations with nature nations remain tense it comes as no surprise that its main stream media is focused on the extension of a president ial term despite the reforms package containing over 140. 00 amendments joining me now assume from canterbury is a professor of russian and european politics and author of the putin paradox reza Richard Sakwa thanks so much richard for coming on im going to say theres wall to wall us coverage of the kremlin putting bounties on u. S. Soldiers heads in afghanistan here in the u. K. Weve got continuing coverage of a russian quasi control of major nation politicians and now this referendum which is being ridiculed widely right across nato countries whats really happening as always its a mixed bag quanta to show you are free and certainly as a political exercise it was impressive i personally have always been a constitutional conservative and though i can understand why a changes to a constitution took place now which changed actually 10 percent of the text in this year and so the way it did chief there are a number of purposes so. The idea of simply being about an extension to putins rule i think is misguided he said impressive if you watch any British Television here Television News its far from impressive its not a democratic vote at all putin has a the lowest support ever and this is all about him retrenching his dictatorship credentials well i must say that the out both at turnout and the years old were impressive were talking about a 65 percent turnout and with 81 percent. More voting figures voting in favor 21 percent against but oh. Timidly i mean we do need to ask tough questions about changing the constitution to achieve a political outcome yes i accept it wasnt just about the political outcome of the removal of immediate term limits for the incumbent but it was about other things a package of social reforms a package of political reforms which give marginal more powers to the parliament over the appointment of the Prime Minister and minister to 8000 it is actually giving away power to the legislative part of the government to a point but the language itself of the constitutional changes so obscure that i think theres going to be plenty of debate over exactly what it means yes so balancing theres been much talk of that but at the same time the other packages the legal reforms are in my view very disturbing because it gives the Federation Council their right to remove judges and so i think its a question mark about the degree to which it can ensure going to do independence of the courts which is always in us are not always been as independent as they should be so its as i say its a mixed bag and when mixing up constitutional issues with political issues i think its never a good idea so what have you thought of the coverage here in britain i mean the iraq war supporting u. K. Observer newspaper suggests that johnson bracks it trumped the taliban theyre all the work of putin is there a degree of mccarthyite the hysteria oh well here i think are dollops of it i think that whats going on now. Is of course all seeing all powerful all controlling from this perspective but of course its completely nonsense the idea of an organized objects it vote just like the allegation that he do organize the election of 2 in 2016 this is not just mistakes. But the way in which it is presented as fact and closing down debate on these issues i think is fundamentally disturbing so yes the u. S. Has accused of subversion of the west but i think that whats going on is more disturbing and that is the self subversion of the west to have seen it in some of these extraordinary campaigns against disinformation which too often is simply attacking alternative policy viewpoints of course newsrooms in arguably monopoly media in nature nations rely on reporters on the ground is there a class dimension to the analysis that is mean characterizes mccarthyite in that the journalists hanging out in moscow only meet the metropolitan elites that do not support that amir putin yes i think this question of you know journalistic bubbles is that not just is that they meet people who they want to meet is that then this is amplified and this it becomes an echo chamber i think thats extremely worrying and i think it youre flecked ing when some to gays the worsening of the professional standards of major some leading western Media Outlets the New York Times coverage recently off the afghan bounty question immediately comes to mind what was your reaction when you when you heard that apparently the taliban and people who have lost relatives because of u. S. U. K. Airstrikes i dont know they need bounties from russia to kill american soldiers as the taliban said itself you know we dont need extra and encouragement but at the same time its much more disturbing because this New York Times story then picked up by the Washington Post and other newspapers including the guardian in new kay taking a very uncritical view of it its obvious that it is clearly to do with a lot of things including the concern about their withdrawal rule of u. S. Forces from afghanistan and also its about disk. Getting to because of the fact that allegedly he was briefed about it but didnt react to it so its a classic classic washington bubble which i used to be a spectacle newspaper like the New York Times should have double check because the source cain explicitly from interrogation off and afghan prisoners who then of course which is dubious and without any corroboration and that published as fact now this has been the whole story of russia gate and its repeated now because the context the wider context is we have Nuclear Missiles trained on russia in nato countries and its more than just a media bubble in that the front runner to win in november at the u. S. President ial election joe biden says he will be threatening immediate Economic Warfare with russia of is elected and will. Be a putin personally that he didnt quite explain how i think this is exceptionally dangerous that biden is the front leader in taking the russia gate story and these you know fear x. Seriously he after the bounty question he immediately endorsed it as if it was a fact so i think it will make an exceptionally dangerous later i said this the same about Hillary Clinton in 2016 where a choice between. Bad and bad or in 2016 and i think were faced again in the United States a choice between but i didnt buy into and i dont know which is the baddest out of the me who is you know clearly an eccentric figure at least for example when they were planning to attack on iran after the germ came down. Pulled the plug on it you know didnt want 120 audience to be killed out of it so where bidens language is exceptionally dangerous in the fact that it is indorsed by the washington. Kuria to establishment is exceptional if no one in europe questions that sort of bad judgment its clear that beijing has lost all patience with what it calls british imperialism how do you see russia and the superpower of this century arguably china coming together because of the kind of russia gate fake alleged fake stories they were aligning long before they ever coming together because they both have a similar viewpoint about International Politics both of us share and china and india one has to say in some other countries theyre good Old Fashioned soviet internationalists again one thing you could say about is that he had a Strategic Vision after 2016 it makes sense to get on with your extra and the idea was to peel russia away from china now this couldnt happen because of you actually great but the idea its up was not a stupid idea but the way that things have developed is that the russian chinese alignment now is moving into a quasi alliance of course russia has always keep the door open to improve relations with the European Union and with the United States so its not slamming the door by any means well no sign of that you have written but aside from hong kong just finally and briefly remind us why. About the fact that russia has been accused highly likely that putin ordered the killing of people in britain using chemical weapons head of the world cup in russia do you not think that that is reason enough of why they should never be a warming of relations between london and moscow well the script the case of songs were poisonings to which you refer clearly know and yet it knows what was going on i think that never is its quite long but i think that we have to work for google ations theres no sign of it anywhere in fact you mention Nuclear Weapons i think that we are heading towards a period of intensified conflict and i think were going to head to go for Nuclear Weapons as well no one wants it but an accident is just waiting to happen professor richard thank you thank you for the show well be back on monday to speak german you a film director and actor. Cinema filmmaker francois truffaut i once called him the most important film director alive until then watch and join the underground on you tube Twitter Facebook found out. Americans are growing at propitious rates because american empire right because its easy for the top to see everything and little or nothing for everyone else america would be better off if it was not an empire so the collapse of the us dollar will be painful for a period of time but what comes on the other side will be i think a lot more amenable to. Thousands of american men and women choose to serve in the countrys military and the decision. You know hold the shot kill me and i see how it destroyed my life any screamed at me and he made me come in the gram my arm and he right mean. 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