» Paddy Ashdown interview
Paddy Ashdown spoke to Ralph Miller about his highs, lows and why he couldn’t work for Gordon Brown
Paddy Ashdown has tried his hand at a few things down the years. The charismatic soldier-cum-diplomat with a degree in Chinese has helped rebuild a Balkan state, sat in both Houses of Parliament and spent 11 years as leader of the Liberal Democrats. I caught up with him to discuss his varied and extraordinary life ahead of the release of his autobiography A Fortunate Life.
Why did you call your book A Fortunate Life?
My life has been a happening. I was a soldier at the end of the golden age of soldiering, I was a diplomat at a time when diplomacy mattered, I was a politician when it was still a calling, not a profession. All of these things happened by accident, but all the accidents turned out to be good ones, so I count myself to be an extremely fortunate person.
“I made many, many mistakes”
What episodes of your varied career give you the most pride?
I don’t believe in pride very much. I think it’s a rather unhelpful emotion. If you said ‘what was the greatest night of my life?’ Then it was undoubtedly being elected to parliament for Yeovil. It took me eight years to win my seat. The Tories had held the seat for 70 years, Liberal candidates were famous for losing their deposits and coming behind the British National Party and my party leader had just been arraigned for attempted murder. It was hardly a tempting proposition, so I think that night when I became MP for Yeovil was the best. There’s no greater privilege than representing the community you live in and love. The second greatest privilege is to stand before your country at election time proposing the way that you think the country should go and I’ve done that too. And then I was asked to help to build peace in the little country of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which I love very much.
If those were the high points what were the low points?
[Laughs]… I’m far too experienced to know that I made many, many, many mistakes, but I’m far too wise to tell you what they were.
Do you have any unfulfilled ambitions?
Well… being Prime Minister of Britain. I wouldn’t have minded doing that.
Is it still possible?
No… Everybody’s life has things they’d liked to have done but haven’t, but I can’t complain, I’ve had a fascinating life, I’ve been a soldier, a diplomat, a youth worker, unemployed, a businessman, a politician and a peacemaker, you can’t want more than that.
At the moment, you’re a Lord, but what else are you up to?
Too much! My wife tells me that this part of our lives is me pretending to be retired and she pretending to believe me. I was yesterday in Paris, talking about Bosnia. I’ve got to go to New York shortly for a talk at Yale. I do a lot of lecturing in the Defence Colleges, I write a lot of articles, I’m thinking about doing another book, probably a novel or a thriller, and I’m busy trying to help my party and my leader Nick Clegg who I admire very much, whenever I can.
Do you feel that there’s a way back from the erosion of civil liberties under the present government?
Yeah, there has to be. It’s the big thing that differentiated me from Blair. I think if we’d put together the partnership government that we were talking about, some of the appalling and scandalous attacks on our civil liberties wouldn’t have happened. We used to be famous in the world for our freedom, now we’re famous in the world because we’re under the government’s control. Gordon Brown asked me to be a member of his cabinet and I said no because I knew he was going to mount another attack on our civil liberties and I could not accept that. He asked me if I would be quiet about it and I said “no, I can’t be quiet about it, this is a scandalous attack on our civil liberties”.
Why do you think they do it?
Because they believe that it will help in the war against terrorism, but it won’t. You should never create systems in a democracy that rely on the goodwill of the politicians that happen to be in power. It’s very dangerous and a complete misunderstanding on their part. I don’t accuse them of bad faith, but I do accuse them of either naivety on the one hand or democratic stupidity on the other! It shows a lack of knowledge of history apart from anything else.
Do you worry about the future or are you optimistic?
I think we have a serious problem ahead of us. I’m confident about the skills and abilities of the average British citizen. Politicians are held in very low regard, and rightly so. Politicians don’t seem to be listening to what people are saying. We’re as close to a democratic crisis now in the capacity of government to be able to govern effectively and with the people’s consent, so I think there’s a very serious issue occurring. It’s something I think we should all be concerned about.
A Fortunate Life is published by Aurum Press. Paddy Ashdown will discuss the book at the Old Market, Hove on 16 June. Tickets: £6 including a glass of wine. Call 01273 736222
