1 00:00:00,803 --> 00:00:03,587 So little Billy goes to school, 2 00:00:03,587 --> 00:00:06,344 and he sits down and the teacher says, 3 00:00:06,344 --> 00:00:09,349 "What does your father do?" 4 00:00:09,349 --> 00:00:13,006 And little Billy says, "My father plays the piano 5 00:00:13,006 --> 00:00:16,112 in an opium den." 6 00:00:16,112 --> 00:00:18,101 So the teacher rings up the parents, and says, 7 00:00:18,101 --> 00:00:21,355 "Very shocking story from little Billy today. 8 00:00:21,355 --> 00:00:25,104 Just heard that he claimed that you play the piano 9 00:00:25,104 --> 00:00:27,264 in an opium den." 10 00:00:27,264 --> 00:00:31,123 And the father says, "I'm very sorry. Yes, it's true, I lied. 11 00:00:31,123 --> 00:00:34,754 But how can I tell an eight-year-old boy 12 00:00:34,754 --> 00:00:39,163 that his father is a politician?" (Laughter) 13 00:00:39,163 --> 00:00:42,411 Now, as a politician myself, standing in front of you, 14 00:00:42,411 --> 00:00:46,066 or indeed, meeting any stranger anywhere in the world, 15 00:00:46,066 --> 00:00:48,642 when I eventually reveal the nature of my profession, 16 00:00:48,642 --> 00:00:51,736 they look at me as though I'm somewhere between 17 00:00:51,736 --> 00:00:56,490 a snake, a monkey and an iguana, 18 00:00:56,490 --> 00:01:00,432 and through all of this, I feel, strongly, 19 00:01:00,432 --> 00:01:03,414 that something is going wrong. 20 00:01:03,414 --> 00:01:06,610 Four hundred years of maturing democracy, 21 00:01:06,610 --> 00:01:09,478 colleagues in Parliament who seem to me, as individuals, 22 00:01:09,478 --> 00:01:13,056 reasonably impressive, an increasingly educated, 23 00:01:13,056 --> 00:01:17,703 energetic, informed population, and yet 24 00:01:17,703 --> 00:01:22,607 a deep, deep sense of disappointment. 25 00:01:22,607 --> 00:01:26,579 My colleagues in Parliament include, in my new intake, 26 00:01:26,579 --> 00:01:31,333 family doctors, businesspeople, professors, 27 00:01:31,333 --> 00:01:35,556 distinguished economists, historians, writers, 28 00:01:35,556 --> 00:01:40,558 army officers ranging from colonels down to regimental sergeant majors. 29 00:01:40,558 --> 00:01:44,219 All of them, however, including myself, as we walk underneath 30 00:01:44,219 --> 00:01:48,327 those strange stone gargoyles just down the road, 31 00:01:48,327 --> 00:01:52,353 feel that we've become less than the sum of our parts, 32 00:01:52,353 --> 00:01:58,026 feel as though we have become profoundly diminished. 33 00:01:58,026 --> 00:02:02,154 And this isn't just a problem in Britain. 34 00:02:02,154 --> 00:02:04,887 It's a problem across the developing world, 35 00:02:04,887 --> 00:02:07,521 and in middle income countries too. In Jamaica, 36 00:02:07,521 --> 00:02:10,829 for example -- look at Jamaican members of Parliament, 37 00:02:10,829 --> 00:02:13,809 you meet them, and they're often people who are 38 00:02:13,809 --> 00:02:19,253 Rhodes Scholars, who've studied at Harvard or at Princeton, 39 00:02:19,253 --> 00:02:22,314 and yet, you go down to downtown Kingston, 40 00:02:22,314 --> 00:02:25,958 and you are looking at one of the most depressing sites 41 00:02:25,958 --> 00:02:30,043 that you can see in any middle-income country in the world: 42 00:02:30,043 --> 00:02:32,806 a dismal, depressing landscape 43 00:02:32,806 --> 00:02:35,996 of burnt and half-abandoned buildings. 44 00:02:35,996 --> 00:02:39,124 And this has been true for 30 years, and the handover 45 00:02:39,124 --> 00:02:43,390 in 1979, 1980, between one Jamaican leader who was 46 00:02:43,390 --> 00:02:46,865 the son of a Rhodes Scholar and a Q.C. to another 47 00:02:46,865 --> 00:02:50,095 who'd done an economics doctorate at Harvard, 48 00:02:50,095 --> 00:02:53,098 over 800 people were killed in the streets 49 00:02:53,098 --> 00:02:56,625 in drug-related violence. 50 00:02:56,625 --> 00:03:00,107 Ten years ago, however, the promise of democracy 51 00:03:00,107 --> 00:03:04,090 seemed to be extraordinary. George W. Bush stood up 52 00:03:04,090 --> 00:03:07,250 in his State of the Union address in 2003 53 00:03:07,250 --> 00:03:11,279 and said that democracy was the force that would beat 54 00:03:11,279 --> 00:03:14,305 most of the ills of the world. He said, 55 00:03:14,305 --> 00:03:18,078 because democratic governments respect their own people 56 00:03:18,078 --> 00:03:23,812 and respect their neighbors, freedom will bring peace. 57 00:03:23,812 --> 00:03:27,446 Distinguished academics at the same time argued that 58 00:03:27,446 --> 00:03:31,124 democracies had this incredible range of side benefits. 59 00:03:31,124 --> 00:03:34,424 They would bring prosperity, security, 60 00:03:34,424 --> 00:03:37,245 overcome sectarian violence, 61 00:03:37,245 --> 00:03:41,710 ensure that states would never again harbor terrorists. 62 00:03:41,710 --> 00:03:44,064 Since then, what's happened? 63 00:03:44,064 --> 00:03:47,258 Well, what we've seen is the creation, in places like Iraq 64 00:03:47,258 --> 00:03:51,246 and Afghanistan, of democratic systems of government 65 00:03:51,246 --> 00:03:54,136 which haven't had any of those side benefits. 66 00:03:54,136 --> 00:03:57,129 In Afghanistan, for example, we haven't just had one election 67 00:03:57,129 --> 00:03:59,796 or two elections. We've gone through three elections, 68 00:03:59,796 --> 00:04:02,923 presidential and parliamentary. And what do we find? 69 00:04:02,923 --> 00:04:06,534 Do we find a flourishing civil society, a vigorous rule of law 70 00:04:06,534 --> 00:04:09,995 and good security? No. What we find in Afghanistan 71 00:04:09,995 --> 00:04:14,140 is a judiciary that is weak and corrupt, 72 00:04:14,140 --> 00:04:18,325 a very limited civil society which is largely ineffective, 73 00:04:18,325 --> 00:04:21,329 a media which is beginning to get onto its feet 74 00:04:21,329 --> 00:04:24,154 but a government that's deeply unpopular, 75 00:04:24,154 --> 00:04:27,922 perceived as being deeply corrupt, and security 76 00:04:27,922 --> 00:04:31,735 that is shocking, security that's terrible. 77 00:04:31,735 --> 00:04:36,393 In Pakistan, in lots of sub-Saharan Africa, 78 00:04:36,393 --> 00:04:39,385 again you can see democracy and elections are compatible 79 00:04:39,385 --> 00:04:43,234 with corrupt governments, with states that are unstable 80 00:04:43,234 --> 00:04:46,091 and dangerous. 81 00:04:46,091 --> 00:04:48,375 And when I have conversations with people, I remember 82 00:04:48,375 --> 00:04:51,256 having a conversation, for example, in Iraq, 83 00:04:51,256 --> 00:04:53,945 with a community that asked me 84 00:04:53,945 --> 00:04:57,455 whether the riot we were seeing in front of us, 85 00:04:57,455 --> 00:05:01,278 this was a huge mob ransacking a provincial council building, 86 00:05:01,278 --> 00:05:05,970 was a sign of the new democracy. 87 00:05:05,970 --> 00:05:10,111 The same, I felt, was true in almost every single one 88 00:05:10,111 --> 00:05:13,059 of the middle and developing countries that I went to, 89 00:05:13,059 --> 00:05:17,110 and to some extent the same is true of us. 90 00:05:17,110 --> 00:05:19,686 Well, what is the answer to this? Is the answer to just 91 00:05:19,686 --> 00:05:22,344 give up on the idea of democracy? 92 00:05:22,344 --> 00:05:26,086 Well, obviously not. It would be absurd 93 00:05:26,086 --> 00:05:28,873 if we were to engage again in the kind of operations 94 00:05:28,873 --> 00:05:31,949 we were engaged in, in Iraq and Afghanistan 95 00:05:31,949 --> 00:05:35,469 if we were to suddenly find ourselves in a situation 96 00:05:35,469 --> 00:05:38,144 in which we were imposing 97 00:05:38,144 --> 00:05:40,583 anything other than a democratic system. 98 00:05:40,583 --> 00:05:43,135 Anything else would run contrary to our values, 99 00:05:43,135 --> 00:05:45,386 it would run contrary to the wishes of the people 100 00:05:45,386 --> 00:05:49,009 on the ground, it would run contrary to our interests. 101 00:05:49,009 --> 00:05:52,316 I remember in Iraq, for example, that we went through 102 00:05:52,316 --> 00:05:54,857 a period of feeling that we should delay democracy. 103 00:05:54,857 --> 00:05:57,549 We went through a period of feeling that the lesson learned 104 00:05:57,549 --> 00:06:01,127 from Bosnia was that elections held too early 105 00:06:01,127 --> 00:06:05,361 enshrined sectarian violence, enshrined extremist parties, 106 00:06:05,361 --> 00:06:08,179 so in Iraq in 2003 the decision was made, 107 00:06:08,179 --> 00:06:11,296 let's not have elections for two years. Let's invest in 108 00:06:11,296 --> 00:06:15,468 voter education. Let's invest in democratization. 109 00:06:15,468 --> 00:06:19,486 The result was that I found stuck outside my office 110 00:06:19,486 --> 00:06:21,658 a huge crowd of people, this is actually a photograph 111 00:06:21,658 --> 00:06:25,138 taken in Libya but I saw the same scene in Iraq 112 00:06:25,138 --> 00:06:29,263 of people standing outside screaming for the elections, 113 00:06:29,263 --> 00:06:32,029 and when I went out and said, "What is wrong 114 00:06:32,029 --> 00:06:34,989 with the interim provincial council? 115 00:06:34,989 --> 00:06:38,657 What is wrong with the people that we have chosen? 116 00:06:38,657 --> 00:06:41,402 There is a Sunni sheikh, there's a Shiite sheikh, 117 00:06:41,402 --> 00:06:44,553 there's the seven -- leaders of the seven major tribes, 118 00:06:44,553 --> 00:06:47,107 there's a Christian, there's a Sabian, 119 00:06:47,107 --> 00:06:51,351 there are female representatives, there's every political party in this council, 120 00:06:51,351 --> 00:06:53,991 what's wrong with the people that we chose?" 121 00:06:53,991 --> 00:06:57,089 The answer came, "The problem isn't the people 122 00:06:57,089 --> 00:07:02,890 that you chose. The problem is that you chose them." 123 00:07:02,890 --> 00:07:06,322 I have not met, in Afghanistan, in even the most 124 00:07:06,322 --> 00:07:09,449 remote community, anybody who does not want 125 00:07:09,449 --> 00:07:12,233 a say in who governs them. 126 00:07:12,233 --> 00:07:14,294 Most remote community, I have never met a villager 127 00:07:14,294 --> 00:07:17,876 who does not want a vote. 128 00:07:17,876 --> 00:07:21,156 So we need to acknowledge 129 00:07:21,156 --> 00:07:24,738 that despite the dubious statistics, despite the fact that 130 00:07:24,738 --> 00:07:30,161 84 percent of people in Britain feel politics is broken, 131 00:07:30,161 --> 00:07:33,133 despite the fact that when I was in Iraq, we did an opinion poll 132 00:07:33,133 --> 00:07:37,391 in 2003 and asked people what political systems they preferred, 133 00:07:37,391 --> 00:07:39,715 and the answer came back that 134 00:07:39,715 --> 00:07:42,776 seven percent wanted the United States, 135 00:07:42,776 --> 00:07:45,499 five percent wanted France, 136 00:07:45,499 --> 00:07:48,154 three percent wanted Britain, 137 00:07:48,154 --> 00:07:52,509 and nearly 40 percent wanted Dubai, which is, after all, 138 00:07:52,509 --> 00:07:55,275 not a democratic state at all but a relatively prosperous 139 00:07:55,275 --> 00:07:59,978 minor monarchy, democracy is a thing of value 140 00:07:59,978 --> 00:08:03,140 for which we should be fighting. But in order to do so 141 00:08:03,140 --> 00:08:06,492 we need to get away from instrumental arguments. 142 00:08:06,492 --> 00:08:10,060 We need to get away from saying democracy matters 143 00:08:10,060 --> 00:08:13,167 because of the other things it brings. 144 00:08:13,167 --> 00:08:15,292 We need to get away from feeling, in the same way, 145 00:08:15,292 --> 00:08:18,889 human rights matters because of the other things it brings, 146 00:08:18,889 --> 00:08:22,581 or women's rights matters for the other things it brings. 147 00:08:22,581 --> 00:08:24,885 Why should we get away from those arguments? 148 00:08:24,885 --> 00:08:27,289 Because they're very dangerous. If we set about saying, 149 00:08:27,289 --> 00:08:31,982 for example, torture is wrong because it doesn't extract 150 00:08:31,982 --> 00:08:37,180 good information, or we say, you need women's rights 151 00:08:37,180 --> 00:08:41,860 because it stimulates economic growth by doubling the size of the work force, 152 00:08:41,860 --> 00:08:43,517 you leave yourself open to the position where 153 00:08:43,517 --> 00:08:45,610 the government of North Korea can turn around and say, 154 00:08:45,610 --> 00:08:48,473 "Well actually, we're having a lot of success extracting 155 00:08:48,473 --> 00:08:50,974 good information with our torture at the moment," 156 00:08:50,974 --> 00:08:52,934 or the government of Saudi Arabia to say, "Well, 157 00:08:52,934 --> 00:08:54,663 our economic growth's okay, thank you very much, 158 00:08:54,663 --> 00:08:56,123 considerably better than yours, 159 00:08:56,123 --> 00:09:00,929 so maybe we don't need to go ahead with this program on women's rights." 160 00:09:00,929 --> 00:09:04,610 The point about democracy is not instrumental. 161 00:09:04,610 --> 00:09:07,399 It's not about the things that it brings. 162 00:09:07,399 --> 00:09:09,964 The point about democracy is not that it delivers 163 00:09:09,964 --> 00:09:16,208 legitimate, effective, prosperous rule of law. 164 00:09:16,208 --> 00:09:20,853 It's not that it guarantees peace with itself or with its neighbors. 165 00:09:20,853 --> 00:09:23,770 The point about democracy is intrinsic. 166 00:09:23,770 --> 00:09:29,101 Democracy matters because it reflects an idea of equality 167 00:09:29,101 --> 00:09:33,509 and an idea of liberty. It reflects an idea of dignity, 168 00:09:33,509 --> 00:09:37,379 the dignity of the individual, the idea that each individual 169 00:09:37,379 --> 00:09:40,980 should have an equal vote, an equal say, 170 00:09:40,980 --> 00:09:44,975 in the formation of their government. 171 00:09:44,975 --> 00:09:49,041 But if we're really to make democracy vigorous again, 172 00:09:49,041 --> 00:09:51,654 if we're ready to revivify it, we need to get involved 173 00:09:51,654 --> 00:09:56,455 in a new project of the citizens and the politicians. 174 00:09:56,455 --> 00:10:00,843 Democracy is not simply a question of structures. 175 00:10:00,843 --> 00:10:04,860 It is a state of mind. It is an activity. 176 00:10:04,860 --> 00:10:08,651 And part of that activity is honesty. 177 00:10:08,651 --> 00:10:12,189 After I speak to you today, I'm going on a radio program 178 00:10:12,189 --> 00:10:14,492 called "Any Questions," and the thing you will have noticed 179 00:10:14,492 --> 00:10:18,292 about politicians on these kinds of radio programs 180 00:10:18,292 --> 00:10:21,757 is that they never, ever say that they don't know the answer 181 00:10:21,757 --> 00:10:23,392 to a question. It doesn't matter what it is. 182 00:10:23,392 --> 00:10:26,744 If you ask about child tax credits, the future of the penguins 183 00:10:26,744 --> 00:10:31,366 in the south Antarctic, asked to hold forth on whether or not 184 00:10:31,366 --> 00:10:33,998 the developments in Chongqing contribute 185 00:10:33,998 --> 00:10:36,332 to sustainable development in carbon capture, 186 00:10:36,332 --> 00:10:39,094 and we will have an answer for you. 187 00:10:39,094 --> 00:10:42,279 We need to stop that, to stop pretending to be 188 00:10:42,279 --> 00:10:44,164 omniscient beings. 189 00:10:44,164 --> 00:10:47,724 Politicians also need to learn, occasionally, to say that 190 00:10:47,724 --> 00:10:51,470 certain things that voters want, certain things that voters 191 00:10:51,470 --> 00:10:55,333 have been promised, may be things 192 00:10:55,333 --> 00:10:58,478 that we cannot deliver 193 00:10:58,478 --> 00:11:02,260 or perhaps that we feel we should not deliver. 194 00:11:02,260 --> 00:11:05,151 And the second thing we should do is understand 195 00:11:05,151 --> 00:11:08,143 the genius of our societies. 196 00:11:08,143 --> 00:11:12,172 Our societies have never been so educated, have never 197 00:11:12,172 --> 00:11:15,108 been so energized, have never been so healthy, 198 00:11:15,108 --> 00:11:18,056 have never known so much, cared so much, 199 00:11:18,056 --> 00:11:23,952 or wanted to do so much, and it is a genius of the local. 200 00:11:23,952 --> 00:11:26,650 One of the reasons why we're moving away 201 00:11:26,650 --> 00:11:30,151 from banqueting halls such as the one in which we stand, 202 00:11:30,151 --> 00:11:34,627 banqueting halls with extraordinary images on the ceiling 203 00:11:34,627 --> 00:11:36,402 of kings enthroned, 204 00:11:36,402 --> 00:11:39,554 the entire drama played out here on this space, 205 00:11:39,554 --> 00:11:42,413 where the King of England had his head lopped off, 206 00:11:42,413 --> 00:11:46,744 why we've moved from spaces like this, thrones like that, 207 00:11:46,744 --> 00:11:50,469 towards the town hall, is we're moving more and more 208 00:11:50,469 --> 00:11:54,417 towards the energies of our people, and we need to tap that. 209 00:11:54,417 --> 00:11:57,207 That can mean different things in different countries. 210 00:11:57,207 --> 00:12:00,520 In Britain, it could mean looking to the French, 211 00:12:00,520 --> 00:12:02,263 learning from the French, 212 00:12:02,263 --> 00:12:05,892 getting directly elected mayors in place 213 00:12:05,892 --> 00:12:08,380 in a French commune system. 214 00:12:08,380 --> 00:12:11,214 In Afghanistan, it could have meant instead of concentrating 215 00:12:11,214 --> 00:12:13,768 on the big presidential and parliamentary elections, 216 00:12:13,768 --> 00:12:16,085 we should have done what was in the Afghan constitution 217 00:12:16,085 --> 00:12:20,765 from the very beginning, which is to get direct local elections going 218 00:12:20,765 --> 00:12:26,312 at a district level and elect people's provincial governors. 219 00:12:26,312 --> 00:12:29,035 But for any of these things to work, 220 00:12:29,035 --> 00:12:31,858 the honesty in language, the local democracy, 221 00:12:31,858 --> 00:12:34,626 it's not just a question of what politicians do. 222 00:12:34,626 --> 00:12:36,694 It's a question of what the citizens do. 223 00:12:36,694 --> 00:12:41,601 For politicians to be honest, the public needs to allow them to be honest, 224 00:12:41,601 --> 00:12:44,180 and the media, which mediates between the politicians 225 00:12:44,180 --> 00:12:48,811 and the public, needs to allow those politicians to be honest. 226 00:12:48,811 --> 00:12:52,433 If local democracy is to flourish, it is about the active 227 00:12:52,433 --> 00:12:56,669 and informed engagement of every citizen. 228 00:12:56,669 --> 00:13:01,070 In other words, if democracy is to be rebuilt, 229 00:13:01,070 --> 00:13:05,394 is to become again vigorous and vibrant, 230 00:13:05,394 --> 00:13:08,540 it is necessary not just for the public 231 00:13:08,540 --> 00:13:11,454 to learn to trust their politicians, 232 00:13:11,454 --> 00:13:16,326 but for the politicians to learn to trust the public. 233 00:13:16,326 --> 00:13:20,326 Thank you very much indeed. (Applause)