0:03

Right,

0:06

welcome to the Restless Parties Leading with me, Alistair

0:08

Campbell. And with me, Rory Stewart. And

0:11

we have our first Nobel

0:14

Prize winner

0:15

in front of us. We haven't had anybody, have we, before? No, we haven't

0:17

had a Nobel Prize winner. No? He's

0:21

definitely on a par, definitely on a par. In fact, we're

0:23

doing this interview because one of

0:25

this person's students got in touch with

0:27

me and said, if you're interviewing really great people on

0:29

your podcast, you've got to get Sir

0:32

Paul Nurse. That is the first

0:34

and last time I shall use your knighthood. Is that

0:37

OK? I'm absolutely delighted about

0:39

that. Well, why

0:41

don't you tell us why you got the Nobel Prize?

0:44

What is the thing that you did? Well,

0:47

I got it mainly because I was very lucky, it has

0:49

to be said. Not

0:52

modest, actually, as many scientists who deserve

0:54

the Nobel Prize. What it was

0:56

for, and I did it, I

0:58

got it with two other colleagues, what it was for

1:01

was for working out the

1:03

mechanism by which the

1:05

division of a cell undergoes

1:09

division from one to two. Now, we're all

1:11

made of cells, billions of cells, we all came

1:13

from a single cell, so it should be

1:15

of interest to

1:16

everybody, both you and everybody listening

1:19

to this. And the control of a

1:21

division of that cell from one to two is

1:23

fundamental to the growth of all living things,

1:25

all reproduction, and goes wrong in cancer.

1:28

What we did was worked out the mechanisms by

1:30

which that's controlled. I want to go to your

1:33

backstory. We interviewed John Major recently, and

1:35

I think of all our interviewees so far, he

1:37

probably wins the most interesting backstory

1:40

award. But I think you knock him off the

1:42

top

1:42

perch. I was telling your

1:45

life story to my daughter this morning,

1:47

and she was like, oh my God. So

1:50

very, very briefly, you were born

1:52

in 1949 to a young woman who, until

1:55

your 50s, you

1:59

believed. believed to be your sister

2:02

and her mother,

2:04

your grandmother, you believed to

2:06

be your mother. Presumably

2:08

because in society

2:11

then, the shame of your

2:14

biological mother

2:15

falling pregnant when she did as

2:17

she did meant it had to be hidden,

2:20

including from you until you

2:22

discovered it filling in a form

2:24

to go to America in your 50s. Absolutely

2:26

correct. Extraordinary, isn't it? Why is mind

2:28

blowing? And the connection to John Major is

2:30

strangely, he was moved

2:33

with his dad and mum to a house which they

2:35

were renting from someone that he didn't discover until

2:37

decades later was in fact his brother

2:39

because again his father had concealed a

2:42

whole part of his family. What is it? I mean,

2:45

tell us a little bit about how that happens and what that

2:47

suggested about your family and that period. Well,

2:50

I came from a working class family. It

2:53

was brought up in Wembley, North West London,

2:55

at a football stadium.

2:58

We lived in a two bedroom flat. There were seven

3:00

of us and quite crowded and so

3:03

on, very happy and so on, but it

3:05

was not exactly luxurious.

3:08

And I had two brothers and a sister.

3:10

I was the only one who stayed

3:13

at school after 15 and I

3:15

became a geneticist. So I used to think

3:17

about why was I different from my

3:19

brothers and sisters? But I never dreamt for

3:22

one moment what actually the truth

3:24

was that Alistair has just described

3:26

until I was applying for a green card

3:29

in America. And I applied

3:31

for a green card and

3:34

I was turned down. I am the only person

3:36

I actually know of who was ever been

3:38

turned down for a green card. I mean, I know people are,

3:40

but I mean, in academic circles it's usually

3:42

straightforward. At the time I had a Nobel

3:45

Prize. I was president of a university in the US

3:47

and I was knighted. I'd rather actually

3:50

admire them for turning me down,

3:52

perfectly honest. What they

3:54

wanted was a proper birth

3:56

certificate. What I had was a so-called short

3:59

birth certificate. which doesn't name your

4:01

parents. It was actually invented

4:03

in the second world war just after it because of

4:05

the problem of illegitimacy that you've just

4:07

been describing. I asked

4:10

my parents, who were my grandparents, why I

4:12

had a short birth certificate. And they said because

4:14

it was cheaper than the bigger one. And

4:16

I produced it. They were still telling you that when you were 50. Well,

4:19

they had died by then. I asked them when I was

4:21

a teenager or something of that sort.

4:24

But they never ever

4:25

sat you down at any point in your life and said,

4:28

we're not actually your parents.

4:30

This is your mom. They did not. And

4:32

I think the reason was ultimately

4:34

was that my mother married somebody else

4:37

when I was about 2 and 1.5. And

4:39

there's a very touching photograph,

4:42

by the way, of she getting married holding

4:44

my hand with one hand and her new husband

4:47

with the other hand. Because she was about to lead

4:49

me

4:50

with her parents to go and

4:52

start a new life. So you really, your grandparents

4:55

weren't, not biologically, but in

4:57

practice, your parents. They acted as

4:59

my parents. I had no idea they weren't.

5:01

Did you call them mum and dad? I called them mum

5:03

and dad. What did you call your real mum? Miriam,

5:06

her name, sister. I used to

5:09

sometimes say to my friends, because they were a bit

5:11

elderly. I used to say it's like being brought up by my grandparents.

5:14

But I was being brought up by my grandparents.

5:17

When were they born, your grandparents?

5:19

My grandparents on that side came from

5:21

Norfolk.

5:21

They actually, they

5:24

themselves were illegitimate too.

5:26

I don't know their fathers.

5:29

I mean, I barely have a male progenitor

5:32

in my entire line. But they,

5:34

this is, we're talking the twenties now.

5:36

They worked in the big houses, quite

5:40

often happened to illegitimate children, and

5:42

they met there. And so I knew

5:44

I didn't have much background there. So

5:46

you believed that they'd been in their forties when you were

5:48

born? Yes. And who

5:51

was your father?

5:52

Right, well, we'll come to that in a moment. I just wanted

5:54

to say what happened that was,

5:58

as I discovered later,

5:59

As my mother got pregnant at 17, she

6:02

was sent to her aunt in Norwich.

6:04

We lived in London, as I said.

6:07

And my grandmother came back with me

6:09

pretending to be my mother. They were protecting

6:12

her, of course, for the reasons

6:14

you've said. And they provided me with

6:16

a good home. I mean, everybody was doing their best

6:18

for me. I mean, it wouldn't happen now.

6:21

Nobody would understand it now. No, my daughter

6:23

didn't. It was a little sort of dull,

6:25

maybe. Because they were a bit elderly.

6:28

Because they were a bit elderly. And your

6:30

father? Well, until

6:33

a few weeks ago, I had no idea

6:35

who my father was. I

6:37

now got a lead. And it's not

6:39

yet

6:39

sure. So I'm not going to talk

6:41

about it here. But I suspect in

6:44

the next couple of months to know

6:46

who my father was. When you're already in your 70s? 70s.

6:50

So look at these two major transformations. For 50

6:52

years, I think I get my parents

6:55

wrong. And then 20 years after

6:57

that, I discover who my father is.

6:59

I'll let you know. I'll let you know. It's quite an interesting

7:02

story. If it's correct.

7:06

So then you set off on this amazing

7:09

life.

7:10

You didn't go to Oxford or Cambridge. You

7:12

went to other universities in Britain. Eventually,

7:14

you ended up in the University of Edinburgh. And

7:17

begin to establish yourself as this extraordinary

7:19

scientist. And I'd love to

7:21

get a sense of that development.

7:24

Where did your interests come? Why did you decide

7:26

to become a biologist, not a physicist?

7:29

And what really is the day-to-day life? Is

7:31

it spending 10 hours a day

7:33

peering at bits of yeast, trying

7:36

different things with 1,000 different

7:38

petri dishes? I mean, give us a sense of that whole

7:40

flavor of that 15 years, I guess. Let's

7:42

start with just why I ended up there. Because

7:46

I was the youngest child in my family, it was

7:48

almost like being an only child, despite

7:50

having brothers and sisters. They were much older than

7:52

me. I had a long walk to school. And

7:56

I got just interested in

7:57

natural history. And I just looked

7:59

at it. you know, the flowers, the birds

8:02

coming, walking back in the

8:04

evening, the stars coming, I looked at planets,

8:06

I got a little telescope, I looked at rings

8:09

of Saturn and things of this sort. And

8:12

really I had, I suppose, just

8:14

a natural curiosity about how the world works.

8:17

It was a deep curiosity. Like

8:20

Alistair, I was actually interested in words and I wasn't

8:22

quite sure whether to go down

8:24

a humanities route or a science

8:26

route. In the end I went for science

8:29

and I went for biology over physics, for

8:31

example, the physical sciences. At the

8:33

time they used to say, I went to a boys school,

8:36

they used to say the boys that can do

8:38

maths do physics and the boys who can draw

8:41

do biology because we just have to draw

8:43

things under a microscope. Actually

8:45

I wasn't very good either but anyway I ended

8:48

up doing biology. And the reason

8:50

was, was I thought, you know, physics,

8:53

and one of my daughters is a physicist actually, physics

8:56

has got such big ideas, how could I ever

8:59

contribute to it? Biology has got

9:01

lots of little ideas mostly with occasional

9:04

fantastic ideas like

9:06

Darwin and so on. And I thought

9:08

I could contribute something to that, whereas physics

9:10

is just too big, if you see what I

9:12

mean. And so I gradually moved

9:15

into biology, I wasn't too good at exams, I found

9:17

it difficult to get into, in fact I was rejected by every

9:19

university I went to and I worked as a technician

9:22

in the Guinness Brewery, in part Royal

9:24

in fact. But eventually I got in, University

9:26

of Birmingham, and as I was

9:29

longer

9:30

in, if you like, academia, I got better

9:33

and better because I didn't have to do exams which I

9:35

was pretty hopeless at. So what actual

9:37

school qualifications did you get then? Well I went

9:39

to Harrow County School which was a school

9:42

where Michael Petillo went for example. It was the other Harrow,

9:44

Rory. The one at the bottom of the hill I

9:47

like to say, rather than the top of the hill. And

9:49

that school, I had a very good

9:52

biology teacher who worked

9:54

on badges. And Keith just

9:56

died actually a couple of months ago sadly.

9:59

And he was in his twenties, he was

10:02

fantastic, I got really interested

10:04

in just how living things worked and he just

10:06

kept going. And what it meant was,

10:09

as

10:10

exams got less and less important as you

10:12

go on, I got better and better.

10:15

Can I just sort of bring out one of the

10:17

interesting things? And so we're in the middle of this

10:19

extraordinary Francis Crick Institute, which

10:21

is on the edge of this amazing

10:24

redevelopment of King's Cross, which actually is a very,

10:26

very exciting urban redevelopment city.

10:28

And right next to what was Google Deep

10:30

Mind, so you're right in the heart of AI and

10:33

next to the fancy St. Pancras Hotel redevelopment,

10:37

get us from that point

10:40

of getting better and better and studying at universities

10:42

to the sort of

10:44

big central bit of your academic life and then move

10:46

us on to where we are now and this next stage.

10:48

Yes, I've always been a researcher, I

10:50

still have PhD students and that is central

10:53

to my working life and I spend

10:55

about half my time following my own

10:57

curiosity. It's a privilege

10:59

to be able to do that, I mean a real privilege,

11:02

but it turned out that I was quite good at running

11:04

things and quite good at setting things up.

11:07

And I sort of felt in my sort of strange

11:10

brain that

11:12

if I could do that, then it would

11:14

be like a payback, which would allow me

11:16

to just pursue my curiosity. It may sound

11:18

a bit odd, but I do see just

11:20

following your curiosity as a privilege and

11:23

I paid it back by doing things like the

11:25

Francis

11:26

Crick Institute. This institute

11:28

came about because I

11:30

was running a smaller

11:32

institute of the Imperial Cancer Research

11:34

Fund and I had the idea of merging

11:37

three institutes to make this big institute

11:40

where people could follow curiosity, the same

11:42

thing as dry

11:45

as me, but we would have

11:47

a discovery institute but we would capture things

11:49

that would be good for society

11:52

but not try and direct them and that's a very

11:54

powerful way of working which we can explore.

11:56

And just to explain to listeners, so there was an institute

11:58

that you were running which was in Lincoln, New York.

11:59

in fields, like a sort of old-fashioned

12:02

place. And then there was another institute up in Hendon

12:05

and somehow you brought them together into this extraordinary

12:07

new development here in Kingsborough. Who's actually

12:09

working in this building now? What are they doing?

12:12

Well, there's 1,500 scientists

12:14

working in here. They are bringing

12:16

with them across the whole spectrum

12:19

of the life sciences. It's

12:21

the biggest institute in Europe under a single roof

12:24

of this sort for sure. And what

12:26

we put together was similar institutes,

12:28

one in Lincoln's in, one in Mill Hill, another

12:31

one in South Mims actually.

12:34

To make this big institute, which

12:36

meant we could be interdisciplinary. I have no

12:38

departments or divisions. It's a bit anarchic in

12:41

fact. And I focus

12:43

on hiring the best people from around

12:45

the world. And we get 400 or 500 applications

12:48

for every job group

12:50

leader position that we advertise, completely better

12:53

than anything we could do in

12:55

the US. The origins of it. I

12:58

had the first idea for it around 2000.

13:01

The first idea was I wanted to put it in the millennium

13:03

dome because nobody had any idea. It was

13:05

a really stupid... It was a rubbish project in the millennium

13:07

dome, wasn't it? It was really, really stupid.

13:10

I don't know about the project. No, it was a great project. We

13:12

always knew it would become a rock venue. I know.

13:14

I shouldn't have brought it up. We did a staging operation

13:16

through the turn of the century. And

13:18

now all the bands in the world want to play there. I'm

13:20

so sorry. We were getting on so well. Always

13:22

planned. Anyway, so

13:25

this was the first idea.

13:27

And of course it got nowhere because it was stupid. It wasn't

13:29

built for that. And anyway,

13:31

then I was working in America

13:34

and a colleague of mine,

13:36

Keith Peters, got hold of me and

13:38

said, you know, about this sort of

13:41

merger, there

13:42

might be a site here from

13:44

the British Library. I didn't know about that.

13:47

And I thought, well, this is

13:49

interesting. And I had a conversation with Gordon

13:51

Brown, which kicked this thing off. And

13:54

Gordon Brown helped us by

13:57

getting us this site.

13:59

I've got to admit it was a bit of a

14:02

struggle because Camden for good

14:04

reasons, we're in Camden, wanted

14:06

the site, put a shopping mall up, I

14:08

think, paid for primary schools. You can't,

14:11

you know, all good things. We

14:13

now help them a lot with life sciences

14:15

education, but it was complicated.

14:18

But Gordon did give us a site at half price,

14:20

still $75 million, and that kicked

14:22

it off. Then it went into the

14:24

next government, okay, and there was a bit of a tussle

14:27

at the beginning because it was a project that could

14:29

be cancelled because

14:29

it was a capital project. And it was a time

14:32

of austerity? Yes. So I

14:34

then went and saw George Osborne

14:36

because it was on the edge of being cancelled,

14:40

and George was very positive about it and

14:42

actually pushed it over the line. So in

14:44

fact, it was both a Labour and

14:46

a Conservative initiative that

14:48

brought this thing back. And so I'm afraid unfortunately you said that.

14:51

We were hoping to get into a fight about who was actually

14:53

going to take the credits. Because as we came in,

14:55

so narrow-minded is Tory Rory, as we call

14:57

him, that he actually

15:00

said you must love walking to this place because this is

15:02

one of the great achievements of the coalition government.

15:04

So I'm glad that you rebutted

15:06

that with your opinion of plays to Gordon Brown. I've

15:09

said it's across the divide between you and

15:12

it's been a great success. As in Jesus the Dome. I

15:15

want to thank you on both sides. Okay.

15:18

Though you're both sort of in the middle, really. Anyway.

15:21

And with that, we're going to the break.

15:25

Okay.

15:28

So I

15:30

wasn't very good at science at school. So

15:32

have you developed something,

15:35

discovered something that will help find

15:37

better treatments and cures for cancer?

15:40

And the link to cancer is that of course

15:42

cancer is about cells duplicating

15:45

at a very, very rapid pace. Exactly.

15:48

So the unifying idea behind

15:50

all cancers is cells growing and dividing

15:53

out of control. So understand how that

15:55

division is controlled is actually

15:58

central

15:58

to understanding cancer. You can't

16:00

really understand any cancer

16:02

without thinking about this.

16:04

In other words, it gives you the conceptual

16:06

framework for thinking about it. Because cancer is all

16:08

about dividing and dividing and dividing, it grows. The

16:11

cells have got to start growing, then they've got to

16:13

dividing. So that means in thinking

16:15

about cancer, which is a complicated disease, you

16:19

have to understand that. But secondly, it turns

16:22

out that because it's so central

16:24

to this process that drugs which

16:27

inhibit it or alter it have turned out

16:29

to be really useful in dealing with some

16:32

cancer. So particularly breast cancer,

16:34

there's drugs now that are coming on

16:36

the market that are proving to be

16:38

very effective. But there's another point

16:41

to be said there. This was discovered in the

16:43

1980s and it's taken 30, 40 years

16:46

before this work can be applied. Okay,

16:48

now, have I answered your question, by the way? Well,

16:50

it's kind of in quite a political sort of way,

16:53

but we can come back to it later. So

16:55

let me ask you this question. What makes a good

16:58

scientist? Science is

17:00

a spectrum. And this is often

17:02

not understood. There are commonalities

17:05

across that spectrum, you know, the pursuit of truth,

17:08

doing good experiments, testing things, and

17:10

so on. But if you are at one

17:13

end of the spectrum, as I am, you discover

17:15

stuff,

17:16

you discover stuff. And that

17:18

is not very well

17:21

pursued if you are too top down, if

17:23

you try and direct people, you

17:25

actually stuff the creative spirit.

17:28

I mean, you know, it's like telling Picasso to paint, you

17:30

know, something in blue or red or whatever.

17:33

I mean, it's just daft. But

17:35

if you go to the other end of the spectrum, where

17:37

discoveries are turned into useful applications,

17:40

it has to be top down because you're trying to cure

17:42

a disease or something of this sort. And

17:45

you need to know

17:46

where you are in the spectrum and how to

17:48

deliver it. Paul, so this is really a connection

17:50

between the two of you in this conversation, because

17:53

when you're saying to him, well, come on, then, how

17:55

is this actually useful for cancer? Is

17:58

it the heart of the issue that you're dealing with all of?

17:59

the time. And I guess the cliche

18:02

about you is you're more on the yeast end

18:04

of things. You're more about big ideas,

18:07

Picasso. And potentially,

18:10

there are people who say we need more directed

18:12

stuff. We need people like Alistair saying, come on

18:14

then, how are you actually going to turn this into

18:17

an application for cancer? It's all very well

18:19

you finding out this basic stuff. Am I right on that?

18:21

You're more on the curiosity side. You're absolutely

18:24

right, and we need both. And often

18:26

what I find is that my

18:29

colleagues can either push one or the

18:31

other when actually you need both.

18:33

And the way we work here is

18:35

to hire hugely creative

18:38

people who are a bit out of the box and

18:40

let them discover stuff which the white-haired

18:43

committees

18:44

can't really think about. I mean, by the

18:46

time they get programmatic strategy,

18:49

they've lost it. I mean, you know, they just come up with

18:51

the absolute obvious. I mean, I have to say.

18:54

But then you need something else. You need

18:56

to capture. You need to have a mechanism

18:58

for capturing

18:59

discoveries that could be useful. And

19:02

they may not be developed here because the sort of

19:04

person like me who's a bit, you know, anarchic

19:06

is not the right person to develop something.

19:09

But we are not snobbish about

19:11

that. We say, we want to do that. We'll

19:13

do it with a company. We'll do it with a biotech.

19:16

And if people want to go somewhere and get

19:18

it going, or we start things here, we do all of

19:20

that. So it's discovery coupled

19:22

with a great capturing process. To bring

19:24

you in on this, I guess the frustration, if

19:27

you were a more kind of directed practical end

19:29

of things that people

19:29

might express, if you're going to be controversial

19:32

towards Paul, you'd say, it's all

19:34

very well. You found out this wonderful thing, but now we

19:36

want to apply it to leukemia.

19:38

And Paul might say, well, I'm unfortunately, I don't have these

19:40

specialist leukemia scientists ready to do this. Or

19:42

you might say, okay, I take another example

19:44

of science. You might suddenly say, okay, you found

19:46

out this wonderful thing on physics, on lithium. But we

19:48

actually need to work out how we manufacture lithium

19:51

membrane at scale. And the Germans, your

19:53

favorite people sometimes, are

19:55

sometimes said to have a more integrated

19:58

practical system that they have as a science.

19:59

system which is many

20:02

different examples of this but a couple of really strong examples

20:05

of systems that really integrate with what businesses

20:07

want with what medical professionals want

20:09

whereas this is more kind of blue sky. Well

20:12

let's take Germany you have a series of what's

20:14

called Max Planck Institutes which are like here.

20:17

Then you have a series of what are called Fraunhofer Institutes

20:20

which is the more practical side. There

20:22

is a problem with that though because they are separate as

20:24

I said.

20:25

Now what we've done here is

20:27

to be Max Planck-ish but

20:29

not snobbish about it. Max Planck-ish

20:32

I have learned my word of the day. Max Planck-ish.

20:34

Susie Dent I've got one for you. And

20:36

what we do is capture stuff

20:39

in there. Of course

20:41

people who are interested in societal good

20:44

in driving the economy all of which depends

20:46

on science. Let's just get that out there. I

20:48

mean science is essential for it and I hope

20:50

we might get into a bit of discussion of where we

20:52

are and horizon Europe and all this sort of stuff.

20:55

But if you just

20:58

invest in application the sort

21:00

of Fraunhofer stuff. George Porter who

21:02

is a Nobel laureate

21:05

and President of society. He

21:07

said it's like building a building

21:09

with insecure

21:11

foundations. You can go higher quickly

21:13

and then the whole thing closes and you

21:16

need to have a balanced approach discovery

21:19

and application for societal good. Now this

21:21

podcast is called the Rest is Politics. Why

21:24

do you think there are so few

21:26

scientists who become politicians?

21:30

So you mentioned Germany, Merkel's background

21:32

was scientific, Thatcher's background was

21:34

Margaret Beckett. Beyond that I can't

21:36

think of many.

21:38

There is coffee. I can't think of that

21:40

effective politicians with a scientific

21:42

background. It may have something

21:45

to do with the characteristic

21:48

activity of science. Attention

21:51

on very fine detail rather than the

21:53

bigger picture.

21:56

I'm going to be provocative here, an obsession

21:58

with truth.

22:00

And if you know if you're in politics and it's

22:02

something it's sort of roughly like this it doesn't

22:04

matter I'm my hands are going up

22:07

and down next to each other It

22:10

perhaps doesn't matter which way you go you make it

22:12

work That isn't how scientific

22:14

discovery and how is it how big a problem is

22:16

it for you that within the political world now?

22:19

We are in a essentially in a post-truth culture

22:21

here. We have been America We have been and

22:24

how did that particularly on issues like

22:27

the climate say the climate crisis? Where

22:30

that has been so heavily politicized? How

22:33

difficult does that then become for for your

22:35

world right well the first thing I'd say I don't

22:38

think the solution is to Get lots more scientists

22:40

in politics in fact what we need

22:42

is Politicians who've got a different

22:44

skill set

22:45

Who take science seriously

22:48

and take truth seriously

22:50

and who will?

22:51

Establish good contacts and interactions

22:54

with science and how do you feel that's going the

22:56

UK is not too bad

22:59

I've worked I've worked across

23:01

the world. I've run an institute in America

23:04

I advise across the world the UK

23:06

is not too bad. I mean You

23:09

know modern science was invented here We

23:12

are very poorly supported and I

23:14

I've done a review for government which we can talk about

23:16

Well if you have time and which absolutely

23:19

demonstrates that but we need a political

23:22

system Which will take advice

23:24

from science and listen to it

23:26

now what we see Particularly in the US

23:28

is of course With the Republican

23:31

Party a disregard or I should

23:33

say part of the put the problem But

23:35

there's a part that's been utterly eclipsed it used

23:37

to be called the Rockefeller wing I

23:40

ran the Rockefeller University actually in the US

23:43

which was completely different and they've

23:45

lost the plot and

23:46

That well

23:49

you're the political people, but I think

23:53

Social media has a lot to do with losing the

23:55

plot quite honestly We really we

23:57

unleashed it on the world without thinking about the

23:59

Constitution

23:59

consequences of it. That means anybody

24:02

can say anything they like and they're not challenged.

24:05

That's undermining it for sure and we need to kick

24:07

back on it. Just to remind people, the

24:09

government has tried to be serious

24:12

about this and we'll get on to whether they're actually delivering,

24:14

but they talked about putting more into research

24:16

and development, setting up this thing called

24:18

the UKRI, UK Research Institute.

24:22

They've set up a new department of government called

24:24

DESAT. Tell us about that. Tell

24:26

us about the structure. Tell us about whether. How did

24:28

you get that? Is that

24:29

a Rishi Sunak thing? Was that something that came from Boris Johnson?

24:32

Where does this new thing come from? Right. UKRI

24:34

came from me actually. I did a report for government

24:36

by 2015-14. We

24:39

had eight or seven or eight research councils.

24:41

They needed to work well together, but

24:44

we also needed, in my view, a single

24:46

voice to talk

24:49

with government. I saw UKRI

24:52

as making the single major case

24:54

to government. That's back in the Cameron-Osworn

24:57

time. Yes, that came from the coalition. I

25:02

think some of my colleagues are critical of it because

25:04

they see it's got

25:07

distant from them. My idea was that

25:09

the research councils, which are grouped

25:11

together, would look after the scientists and UKRI

25:13

would look after the politicians in a funny

25:15

way. I still think we've got to get

25:18

there, but that was the idea because

25:20

I wanted a powerful force

25:22

for science, a powerful

25:25

voice in government. I think UKRI

25:28

can do that. DCIT is a great idea,

25:30

in my view, and that's been brought

25:32

about in the last months. I don't know

25:34

which... I'd like to know Rishi Sunak because he's interested in

25:36

science. Yes. He's

25:39

put that together. I

25:42

was doing a review and I was going to recommend

25:44

such a thing. In actual fact, it happened before my recommendations

25:47

came out. I think that's a very positive thing

25:50

too. The vision is

25:52

there.

25:53

Now we have to deliver it.

25:59

great pioneer of science,

26:02

you mentioned horizon. And

26:05

Ruchisunach has got what he calls Horizon Plan

26:07

B, which I believe is called Pioneer.

26:10

We talk a lot about horizon, and it's

26:13

true I think you say you get a lot of people in politics who

26:16

talk a lot about things without necessarily

26:18

knowing all the time what they're talking about. Just

26:20

explain what horizon Europe is, why

26:23

it's so important, why you are

26:25

desperate for the UK government to get

26:27

back into it, and why this

26:29

Plan B is perhaps not quite what

26:32

it's cracked out to be. Yes, I've been very critical of Plan

26:34

B because I think it is woefully inadequate

26:36

for the problems that we are facing.

26:39

In fact, I think it's mainly there. And tell us about

26:41

Horizon first before we talk about that. I

26:44

will tell you about Horizon first. Because most people don't know what Horizon

26:46

is. Okay, Horizon is

26:48

the, if you like, the science

26:51

discovery vehicle for

26:53

the European Commission, for the European Union,

26:56

but has relationships with some countries

26:58

which are outside European Commission

27:00

like, or Switzerland,

27:02

which has now just been excluded

27:04

because of political reason.

27:06

Israel plays in that territory as well.

27:09

Now there's three major, if

27:11

you like, sort of foci for

27:13

science in the world.

27:15

Europe, North America, and

27:17

Asia based on China. And

27:20

if you're outside that, you're outside

27:22

the collaboration that is necessary

27:24

to generate high quality science. Bigger

27:26

money, more scientists, more universities. Yeah,

27:30

it is big money, but there's

27:32

too much obsession with the money. And that's actually

27:34

what's going wrong now, when we can

27:36

get to it. It is actually the

27:38

network, the collaborations, the fact

27:41

that you can pull on a population

27:43

of 350 million to get the

27:45

best advice, to get the best

27:47

initiatives going, and to drive

27:49

science in a proper way. That's

27:52

the vision of Horizon. And

27:54

that's what's being lost in the

27:56

negotiations that we're going on at the

27:58

moment.

27:59

come out of it because as you said there

28:02

are non-European Union members who are in it. We

28:04

didn't have to come out of it and in fact it was part

28:06

of the deal. We would be in it. It was

28:08

stalled

28:10

by the European Union saying until you've

28:12

sorted out Northern Ireland. You can't

28:14

be in it. You can't be in it. So none

28:16

of the issues cost. No, Northern Ireland sorted

28:18

out. We could have instantly rejoined. But

28:20

we didn't. And why

28:23

didn't we? For the scientists, we simply

28:25

do not understand. 15 Nobel

28:28

Prize winners wrote to

28:30

Mr. Sounak in January, February.

28:33

I played a major role

28:35

in orchestrating that. And he took

28:37

him two months to reply. So I mean he's not

28:39

really on the ball

28:40

always with that stuff. I have to say

28:42

I was a bit disappointed about that. But 15

28:45

Nobel laureates said this is absolutely essential.

28:47

All the academies say it's essential. Every

28:49

sensible scientist you talk to want to

28:51

do it. Yet six months later we

28:53

haven't delivered it. And I'm not sure

28:56

on the problem, which is the government is

28:58

trying to say that in Plan B if they can't get the

29:01

right relationship with the horizon, they'll put up

29:03

as much money. It's not that they're not going to put the investment

29:05

in. You're saying it's not just about the money. It's about

29:07

all these networks of connections across Europe that

29:09

you'll lose

29:10

even if you put up the equivalent money. Absolutely

29:13

correct. And I don't think Mr. Sounak

29:15

understood that initially. I've heard that he's

29:18

getting round to that. But that's

29:20

the point. It's all the... We

29:22

spent 40 years building this and

29:24

it's being destroyed every month. Everybody...

29:27

I can recruit from around the

29:29

world, best scientists in the world. I've

29:31

lost one of them because they wanted

29:33

to be part of this. I try every

29:36

time I recruit somebody from around the world,

29:38

North America, anywhere.

29:40

The first question they ask is,

29:41

are you going to join Horizon?

29:45

Honestly, they say, and I have

29:47

to bring through it and say, yes,

29:50

I think we're a sensible country. And they

29:52

want us in, in part because

29:55

we do have a good science base. We used to be

29:57

leading in this. We could set

29:59

the agenda. We still can. They

30:01

want us in there. And we are fiddling around

30:04

with no vision over this,

30:06

just accounting and sort of trivialities

30:10

in my view. Sorry,

30:12

I'm passionate about this. And

30:14

there's no scientists involved in this

30:17

who actually can drive it and say

30:19

how important this is. It's unfair

30:21

to make you do this, but play devil's advocate for a second. What

30:23

do you think a senior civil servant or

30:26

someone close to Rishis, you know, would say,

30:29

Paul's not explaining what the problem is. The reason

30:31

we're actually irritated and we're not signing up on the dotted

30:33

line is the reason they're not

30:35

signing up, I think could be partly

30:38

financial, possibly partly

30:40

political.

30:41

The financial bit would be because

30:44

this has been running for a year, two years already.

30:47

It's a bit complicated to see which ones

30:49

you buy into, which ones where you can't

30:51

buy into. And therefore you might be losing

30:54

or gaining some money. So

30:56

somebody might be saying, no, no, no, the European

30:58

Union is not being fully fair here. They're making

31:00

us pay for lots of stuff and they're not getting us the benefit of the sum and

31:02

stuff. And it isn't lots of stuff. Let's be

31:05

clear about it. They've already said,

31:07

you know, you haven't been in for two years. We're not going to

31:09

charge you for that. But there's certain initiatives

31:11

which were set up. Let's

31:14

be honest. It's ideological. This

31:16

is because they cannot bring themselves to say

31:19

that Brexit was a mistake and they cannot bring themselves

31:21

to say that they've damaged our science base. That's

31:23

the second point. I was going to say it's partly financial

31:26

and spreadsheet and sort

31:29

of, you know, accounting. And it's partly political. Maybe

31:32

they're frightened of the right wing of their party or

31:34

they don't want to admit that this is something good.

31:37

But I tell you, because it's in Europe,

31:39

but it's hugely damaging on reputation.

31:42

The other point,

31:44

which I'm sure you wanted to make as well to Rory Paul, is

31:47

that all these other things where they said

31:50

they were so like the common agricultural policy,

31:52

they were going to help the farmers and the chemicals

31:54

industry have got an identical problem

31:56

where they were part of EU reach this

31:59

massive data.

31:59

base worth 2 billion and they're now having

32:02

to build their own core UK reach and

32:04

they no longer have access to that and

32:06

that's ideological. It is. I

32:08

mean, look, I'm wearing a scientist

32:10

hat and you should listen to me for science. I have

32:13

also, I'm a normal

32:15

member of the public. Brexit is a disaster,

32:18

disaster top to bottom. We

32:21

have to be part of a regulated system.

32:24

We've moved ourselves out of it. We have to replicate

32:26

it. It'll cost more money. It got

32:28

in just by a couple of percent and

32:30

yet we went for a very hard Brexit. That's

32:32

not democracy. I

32:34

mean, it isn't democracy. They should have said, okay,

32:36

we voted, we go out, but we try and maintain

32:39

as many things as we can. That's what I was trying

32:41

to do. Yes, I know you were trying to do it and you

32:43

were right to do it. But there's an ideological

32:47

Fail because people like this were pushing so hard for second level. I

32:49

couldn't get any support for a moderate Brexit. I'm

32:51

going to let you squabble between yourselves, I think.

32:54

But there is an ideological thing here,

32:56

possibly. Now, I sort

32:58

of think they're getting into so much ... Nobody

33:00

sees any advantage in Brexit. It got

33:02

in there under problems about immigration.

33:04

Will they solve? Give me a break.

33:06

No. But science is critical

33:09

for the future of our country. Working

33:11

with Europe is critical for the success

33:13

of our science. This is a no-brainer.

33:16

There's a vision here which is being lost

33:18

due to excessive interest in

33:20

spreadsheets and accounting, losing

33:23

the vision of what science is. We will wonder if somebody ... We

33:25

are big heroes and we even understand it now. Right.

33:29

Your politics. So you've been a member of the Low

33:31

Party.

33:32

40 years. Ever thought of leaving?

33:34

Any point at which you thought of leaving? No, I haven't.

33:37

I've got frustrated and irritated. I thought

33:39

Corbyn was a disaster, I have to say. I come

33:42

from a working class background. I saw what my grandparents

33:45

did. They had to have all their teeth

33:47

out because it was cheaper to do that rather than

33:49

pay for dental care. I

33:52

was told these stories. I can't forget it.

33:55

And so I have been there, even though I've been frustrated

33:57

and irritated. I'm a member of the party.

33:59

I'm very low level, I don't actually do. But

34:02

you had been patron of Scientists for Labour. I

34:04

had been a patron together with

34:07

David Sainsbury, for example,

34:09

of Scientists for Labour. But I have

34:12

to admit, I've only been to one meeting. Okay, but

34:14

how, what do you see? Whenever

34:16

I went on the Today programme, they mentioned it, I

34:18

have to say. Oh, that's to sort of try and dismiss

34:21

your view. Exactly, I couldn't quite, well, they seem to have dropped

34:23

it now. Oh, that's good. I think it was the climate

34:25

change denialist complained. What's

34:27

your hope if we did get a Labour government

34:30

of what would you like to see from a new government in relation

34:33

to their approach to the world that you operate

34:34

in? Well, I think what we've got, if we

34:36

look at the Conservative and the Labour positions,

34:39

the Conservatives say that

34:41

science is very important and we're going to be a science

34:43

super power, but are very

34:46

tardy on delivering what is needed,

34:48

okay? Labour doesn't talk

34:50

about it very much. In fact, it's a bit under the

34:53

radar. I'll talk about we want a better health system

34:55

or we're going to have green economy, but they don't

34:57

think about how the science is developed. And

34:59

I'd rather that the Labour party was

35:02

more up about science. So

35:04

it could show the same interest and then hopefully

35:07

actually deliver something. And the report you

35:09

did for the government, the business.

35:11

The most recent one. The most recent one, the

35:13

report on research and development innovation. You

35:16

concluded actually that we were way, way,

35:18

way down the international lead table

35:20

of where we need to be. It's really extraordinary.

35:23

I have to say I was really surprised because the

35:25

policy wonks weren't talking about this. I

35:27

mean, I read this sort of thing.

35:30

I mean, we talked a lot about,

35:32

and I'm responding, you know, I'm a bit in that

35:34

territory. And we were worried about

35:36

industry spend on science, which actually was much

35:38

higher. Because the ONS had

35:41

lost nearly

35:41

a percent of spend on science, 1% of

35:47

GDP, because they weren't accounting

35:49

for it. But listen to this statistic. We

35:52

are aiming to be a science superpower.

35:55

The OECD nations, 35, 37, that's not G7, G10.

35:58

It's a lot of nations.

35:59

We are 27th in

36:02

the league in how much money

36:04

the government spends

36:06

on science. And am I right in saying Paul, that actually

36:08

unfortunately the UK has been

36:10

lagging behind for many many decades compared

36:13

to the US, Germany, Japan? It's

36:15

been lagging behind

36:17

on the total spend and it's got

36:19

worse on the amount of research

36:22

that government itself

36:24

performs because successive

36:27

cuts in departments on research have

36:29

reduced that to one third

36:31

of what it was in the 1980s. So

36:34

there's been two things that have happened. We've

36:36

lagged behind increasingly in the total

36:38

spend and we've gone down dramatically

36:41

in the amount that government spends and

36:43

I'm in that category because we're partly government

36:46

spending here. So places like this are

36:49

much less now than they were 30-40 years ago. Can

36:51

I just say how much when under

36:54

new labour,

36:54

how much did you talk about science

36:56

think about? I'm very interested in this point that Paul's

36:59

making that Kia Stama is not

37:01

majoring on science. We're not hearing a lot about

37:03

him from science. Is that something that

37:06

was top of your agenda and is it something

37:08

that you think should be top of Kia Stama's agenda just

37:10

in terms of retail politics, elections, the

37:12

public? Well, essentially you just mentioned

37:15

the person within the Labour government that

37:17

we looked to for

37:20

science strategy and I think because he was actually so

37:22

good, I don't know whether Paul would agree with that, but I think David

37:24

Sainsbury was one of those very

37:28

rare people who came from business, adapted

37:32

as a minister in a way that very, very

37:34

few people from business do and

37:36

was absolutely superb. So

37:38

I think Tony Blair was

37:41

always fascinated by science and technology, but

37:43

it wasn't one of his priorities in

37:46

part because I think he felt we

37:48

had a really good minister who made sure

37:50

that science was being pushed into the

37:52

agenda and I imagine that would be one of the

37:54

reasons why Gordon Brown did fight

37:56

so hard for you when you asked him to help get this

37:58

play set up. not top priority,

38:00

not up there with health and education, etc. But

38:03

that was how we got it on the agenda. So the

38:06

government has committed to spend 2.5%

38:09

of GDP on

38:11

research and development. Is that

38:13

something that Kiasama should be committing to that

38:16

target, putting science at the center of the labors

38:18

agenda or not in terms of winning another election?

38:20

Well, I wouldn't define it as science. I

38:22

do think that part of labors,

38:25

what's missing from their messaging and their strategy

38:28

at the moment, is a sense of how are

38:30

they going to build this economy

38:32

of the future in which

38:35

life sciences are fundamental.

38:38

So I think it's making it part of that bigger

38:40

picture. I'd start with the vision

38:43

of what science can deliver. That's the

38:45

first point. Well, it can save the planet. Well,

38:48

think about what it is. It drives the economy, increases

38:51

productivity. It brings societal

38:53

goods like improving the health of the nation

38:56

and protecting the environment. All of this

38:59

has its origins in science

39:01

and needs science. Science should be

39:03

central

39:04

to all policy. It isn't. But

39:07

having D-CIT may help there, but

39:09

it needs to be central. Then you've got to think about

39:12

the money. And you mentioned the 2.5%. And

39:14

in a way, that's confused us because most

39:16

of that money isn't under government

39:18

control. I mean, much of it comes from

39:21

elsewhere. So we've lost what

39:23

is under government control. We're not talking about

39:25

it. If I was to tell you that the percentage

39:27

that government spends on research is 0.12%

39:30

on the work that it does, and

39:35

the total that it funds other places like

39:37

universities and so on, including that 0.12%, is 0.46%. That's

39:42

what we should be talking about. And

39:44

there, we're pathetic. If we take,

39:48

for example, South Korea,

39:50

Germany, which we've mentioned, the

39:52

US, we're looking at

39:55

in the order of double that. Is

39:57

that why we are 27,000?

39:59

That is why we are on 27th. Why

40:02

don't you just sit down with your scientist

40:04

and political hat on and write a science

40:06

strategy for Labour?

40:08

Well, I could. I could.

40:11

But actually it's almost written in my report

40:13

because I wrote it for the government.

40:15

I mean, it's there. All you need

40:17

actually is for them to endorse it and say they're going to rapidly

40:20

increase the government spend on science. Well, what we

40:22

could ask Keir to do is to say, actually,

40:25

Michel Donaland, who is the... has

40:28

personally to me said she's strongly

40:30

in favour of it. I mean, so that's one thing

40:33

that Labour could do. She's the Minister

40:35

of Science. She's on maternity leave, comes back in a couple

40:38

of weeks. I've had very good conversations with

40:40

her. We've not had that public endorsement

40:43

out of the Labour Party. I'm sure they

40:45

would do,

40:45

but it's not high on the... Well,

40:47

lots of them listen to this podcast, Paul. Lots of

40:50

them listen to this podcast. And I think as they're listening,

40:52

they will be like, well, this is a problem. This guy

40:54

sounds like he knows what he's on about. This is a problem.

40:56

This is getting a bit embarrassing. Because he's

40:58

not often to be found praising Michel Donaland.

41:01

No. And if you notice, I didn't. But

41:05

we need to deliver

41:07

that and we need to focus on the government

41:10

spend. So let me finish my final

41:12

challenge, then, Paul. I guess to probably

41:14

get people like Alistair and van Venterel,

41:16

of course, for Monquilla and others really engaged, they

41:19

really want to see their practical

41:21

benefits. And maybe the challenge

41:24

is

41:24

this Fran Hoffer's more German

41:27

practical implementation. They might turn up here

41:29

and say, Paul,

41:30

you're a Petri dish person.

41:33

You like people blue sky thinking. You

41:36

don't have enough computational biologists. So

41:39

maybe if you could come together and say, this is how I'm

41:41

going to get the computational biologists in. This

41:43

is how we're going to really demonstrate the practical stuff. I'm

41:46

going to have a more directive part of my department,

41:48

then maybe the politicians will get more excited. It's

41:50

basically suggesting that Labour's slogan should be Max

41:53

Planckish. By

41:56

the way, Google DeepMind have labs

41:59

in here.

41:59

I mean, we're in close contact

42:02

with them. It goes back to the spectrum.

42:04

We need the spectrum. I happen to be a discovery

42:06

scientist, but I'm not in any way saying

42:08

we don't need the other. I'm just saying we

42:11

have to be clever about it. And

42:13

if you read my report, which is very good if you're having

42:16

trouble getting sleep at night, by the way,

42:18

because there's 155 pages of it, you'll

42:20

see that I talk about a number of things, not

42:22

just money, not the

42:24

diversification of how we do research,

42:27

because it's all focused in universities at the moment, which

42:29

are not always

42:29

the only places to develop things.

42:32

Places like this can do it. But importantly,

42:35

we have to increase the permeability

42:38

of ideas, discoveries,

42:40

people, and technologies between all

42:43

parts of the system. I went around,

42:45

talked to 250 institutions and so on. I'd

42:49

go into a university that had never heard of

42:51

the public service research establishments. I

42:53

mean, they didn't even know what they were. You go into

42:55

the PSREs, as they call, they never

42:57

can recruit easily from universities. It's

42:59

all

42:59

siloed. We have to break it down,

43:02

vision the game, vision in driving

43:04

it. Now, just let's maybe wrap up on this. Just

43:07

tell us what you think

43:08

we did well and did

43:10

badly during the pandemic.

43:12

We were heavily involved here actually

43:15

in setting up testing. And that's

43:17

what I'm gonna focus on. We

43:19

failed miserably, in my view. I

43:22

mean, and by the way, I'm not a medical

43:24

scientist, but in my

43:26

view, in setting up testing. And

43:29

that was the only thing at the very

43:31

beginning that was of any help for reasons

43:33

I don't have to explain. Now, what we

43:35

realized here is that when everybody was

43:37

being sent home, that we had all the

43:39

equipment to do testing. We

43:41

had all the expertise

43:42

to do testing. We're a publicly

43:45

funded body. So rather than send people

43:47

home, we could set up testing

43:49

for free,

43:51

testing for free, which is what we did within

43:53

weeks, and connect with

43:55

local hospitals and local

43:57

care homes, because it's not just

43:59

testing. Testing is the logistics of

44:01

connecting to the front end. Yeah, but Paul

44:04

then, they wouldn't have been able to help all their mates get

44:06

rich on the back of it, would they? Well, that's us.

44:08

We can go there in a moment, but let's just think about what

44:11

did the government do? It set up big

44:14

testing stations. Which was Matt Hancock.

44:16

This was Hancock, but I mean, with others. Yeah.

44:19

That wasn't such a stupid idea, but it

44:21

obviously wasn't going to work for nine months or 12

44:23

months. So we went through the first wave

44:26

when most of...

44:27

...was the greatest deaths. In my view,

44:29

what contributed to that was the lack of testing. Now, what

44:32

we did, and I wrote to Hancock,

44:34

I got no reply. We can come to it again in

44:36

a moment. Should have said it on the WhatsApp. I

44:38

said, look, do this. Yeah, he does WhatsApp.

44:41

Do this. I said, take all the university

44:43

medical schools and institutions, OK?

44:46

Connect them to local hospitals

44:49

and get them back in work and doing testing.

44:51

Within weeks, we were doing

44:53

a couple of thousand tests a day, within

44:55

weeks. And at one stage, we

44:57

were doing 10, 15 percent of all testing in

45:00

the country. I mean, it is absurd. I

45:02

wrote to Hancock, together with Peter Ratcliffe,

45:04

two Nobel laureates, OK? No

45:06

more. I got no reply. No, I have to tell you. I

45:08

got no reply from Hancock for three

45:10

months. And then I got a reply from

45:13

a civil servant once it was all over.

45:15

It was outrageous. I

45:17

want to come on in this.

45:19

You keep saying that Richie Sunak is running

45:21

this professional ship. That's twice now a guy

45:24

who understands this world inside out is

45:26

telling us stories about you can't even

45:28

get a reply to letters from these people. Let

45:30

me try to push back. I

45:34

think what we're hearing is a government that

45:36

makes huge errors. I was very

45:38

angry with the way government did COVID,

45:41

horrified the people who are applying to letters, but

45:43

also a government that has been trying

45:45

to put science at the centre of its strategy. It talks

45:48

about science. It set up new departments on science.

45:50

So they don't want to reply to letters from Nobel

45:52

Prize winner. It's a mixed picture of us,

45:54

says he, trying to make sure that you can hit the

45:56

middle ground here, right? Genuinely,

45:59

George Osborne cares.

45:59

Genuinely, he provided a lot of the support

46:02

to get us off the ground. Rishi Sunak

46:04

cares about science. But doesn't apply to

46:06

his performance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Set up a new department

46:09

on it. And the fact is that Labour

46:11

hasn't yet put science at

46:13

the centre of their strategy. So it isn't

46:16

just about Covid, where I agree,

46:18

absolutely agree. I was horrified

46:20

by what the government did in Covid. But it's

46:23

a bigger issue, isn't it? Because it's not just Britain,

46:25

it's every country in the world is now going to have to

46:27

think

46:28

about science, particularly about artificial intelligence at the moment.

46:30

And this question of how

46:33

politicians who don't really get this

46:35

stuff... Which is most of them, and that's not a criticism.

46:37

And a public that finds

46:39

it very difficult to get their head around this stuff and isn't voting

46:42

about it. How do they deal with it? Sorry, I'm going to try.

46:45

I think politicians can get it. I'm more

46:47

in favour of your class than you are of yourselves

46:50

in some ways. The political class. The political

46:52

class. Or at least in this

46:54

country. It's not the class that he recognises. Of

46:57

course.

46:58

And I think the best

47:00

politicians get it and listen to it.

47:03

The problem we've got is, of course, they

47:06

don't think it's a vote winner. And they've

47:08

got to be mature and rise above it. Now,

47:10

the rhetoric was there. Boris had the rhetoric,

47:13

OK, but didn't deliver beneath

47:15

the rhetoric, as we saw. That's astonishing. We

47:17

do need money, but we need vision. And

47:20

absolutely, what is an open door

47:23

is Horizon Europe. That's

47:26

the it's already in the budget. And

47:29

we are fiddling about, you know,

47:31

it's rather like Nero, the violin,

47:33

rice, Rome is burning. Rome is

47:36

burning. And we have to stop it. Now,

47:38

Paul, can I finish on a sort

47:40

of more. No, we like to accept. Can

47:43

I finish by just saying

47:45

you're talking to it's a cliche

47:47

question. You're talking to young people about

47:49

a life in science. Looking back

47:52

at your life so far, what it is that

47:54

have brought you satisfaction,

47:56

what's brought you frustration about your life?

47:59

You know, it's. a privilege to follow

48:01

your curiosity

48:03

and work out how the world works.

48:05

It's an amazing privilege. It won't pay as well

48:07

as other jobs, but I go into work

48:10

every day thinking, what will

48:12

we discover today? It is fantastic.

48:15

It is hard. Most of the time you

48:17

don't discover things. Most of the times

48:19

you fail is psychologically

48:22

difficult for those reasons, but

48:24

it is fantastic. And

48:26

it's for the public good. I mean, it's

48:29

not just the sorts of things that are driving

48:31

the economy and productivity and so on, absolutely

48:34

important as they are. It also contributes

48:36

to our culture, to our civilisation,

48:39

what we know about ourselves and the world.

48:41

All of this has to put science

48:44

central to any government

48:46

of the future. I'm going to close with a question

48:48

that we actually had from one of our listeners a couple of weeks ago,

48:51

who asked us,

48:52

did we think that the world was

48:54

more likely to end

48:56

as a result of nuclear annihilation,

48:59

artificial intelligence or the next pandemic?

49:03

So my question is how confident

49:05

are you that we're going to be around for

49:08

as long as it's taken us to find out

49:10

this amazing cell division that you discovered?

49:13

I'm an optimist. I think we, A,

49:15

will deal with things with our knowledge, eventually,

49:18

maybe not as effectively as we should, but

49:20

we will deal with it. I think

49:22

that on the whole, in some

49:25

countries, the political classes I have,

49:27

I'm nervous about, I have to say. And

49:31

you've taken me US Republicans, you're terrified. US

49:33

Republicans, but we have to look at Russia too.

49:36

I was recently in Kiev, actually, I met President

49:38

Zelensky, become an ambassador

49:40

for education and science for Ukraine

49:43

to try and rebuild some of that.

49:45

I mean, very moving to see all the destruction

49:48

that's happened. But ultimately, I think

49:51

we will deal with these things. I mean, we

49:53

worry about nuclear war. Remember, I'm a child of the

49:55

sixties. I mean, then we will, in head breadth

49:57

of

49:57

nuclear annihilation, we somehow

49:59

got through that. The pandemic is a shock

50:02

to us. And this could have been a worse

50:04

pandemic. And we're still not prepared. You watch

50:06

what happens here. You know, we were

50:08

all talking about it when we were dying of it.

50:10

Now we're not dying of it. Oh, let's worry about

50:12

the mortgages. You know, I'm not saying mortgages are

50:14

not important. It's gone off. AI. AI

50:18

has been overdone. AI, let's

50:20

call it, you know what, part of the problem is the

50:22

name, artificial intelligence. Isn't

50:24

it already spooky? What we're doing

50:26

is machine learning. Let's start calling

50:29

it machine learning.

50:29

And then we don't scare the shit out of everybody

50:32

like we do when we say AI. So

50:34

call it machine learning, getting all this data

50:36

and looking for patterns within it and how you

50:38

can deal with things. And already it gets less

50:41

worrying.

50:42

Machine learning is developed by human

50:44

beings with algorithms. We can control

50:47

the algorithms. We need some regulation

50:49

here, bit like the social media. Don't let

50:51

it just all go out of control and try and put the genie

50:53

back in the bottle. Get to grips with it now. Fundamentally,

50:57

I think the human race will survive and

50:59

we'll deal with it. Good. Well,

51:01

as we're in Keir

51:02

Starman's constituency, I

51:05

suggest that as a result of this podcast,

51:07

to which if he's not listening, I know that most

51:09

of his team are, that you write

51:11

to him

51:12

and that you explain to him that

51:14

you've been trying to write to the government, but they tend

51:16

not to write you letters. But would he

51:18

like to come into this amazing building and have a look

51:20

around and can we try to put science

51:23

at the heart of ladies economic strategy? I'm sure

51:25

he'll come to the building, but get a commitment out of him. Pin

51:27

him down. Get him to commit how much

51:30

money his government is going to spend on science

51:32

because at the moment the government's not spending

51:34

enough. Yes. So I have to, you

51:36

know, you're looking for the middle here. Okay. I've

51:39

had

51:40

both prime ministers, not the

51:42

present one, but all the ones before. I've

51:44

had Keir in the building. I've explained all

51:46

of this. They are all on board, but

51:48

Labour's got to start talking about it. Tories

51:51

whilst in power have got to put the money in and

51:54

get us into Horizon Europe.

51:56

That's the first quick thing then I'll stop moaning about

51:58

them.

51:59

Very good. Thank you. Thank you so much, Sir Paul.

52:02

Thank you. It was a pleasure talking to you. It

52:04

was a pleasure talking to you. And let us know when you find out

52:06

about your dad, you promise. I will do. Thank

52:08

you. It

52:10

will be a month. Right, Paul Nurse. So,

52:15

Alistair, I think we need to finish with a huge

52:17

thank you to you because Paul Nurse

52:19

made his way to you through an email

52:22

from

52:23

one of his young scientists and you

52:25

pushed us to do it. I was initially, I

52:27

must say, a little bit skeptical. I thought, wait a

52:29

sec, here we are interviewing all these political

52:32

leaders. And now we're interviewing

52:33

a man who's a distinguished biologist.

52:36

But I thought it was terrific. Really,

52:38

really good. So thank you. Well, shout out for

52:40

Billy. Billy is the guy that

52:42

we, after you left, we went and

52:44

spent some time with Paul and some of

52:46

his researchers and some of the team. And Billy,

52:49

we found Billy in a very darkened

52:52

room looking at a large screen

52:55

where he was watching yeast cells

52:58

and waiting to see them. Well,

53:02

I wanted to actually, I would have loved

53:04

to ask Paul Nurse, and maybe the listeners

53:06

wouldn't have liked it, but I would have liked to ask him much

53:08

more about the science. I wanted to know,

53:10

for example,

53:12

what more remained to be discovered about

53:14

yeast. I mean, he found out these incredible things about

53:16

yeast. But one of the things

53:18

that fascinates me about science is

53:20

the sort of known unknowns. All

53:22

the stuff that still remains to be discovered.

53:25

I was talking to an ornithologist recently who was

53:27

saying that lots of very basic

53:29

information about birds we still don't know.

53:31

We still don't know where some of them migrate. We still

53:33

don't really understand how some of them reproduce.

53:36

I mean, it's fascinating how little

53:38

we still know about the world. What I loved

53:40

about it, after you left

53:42

to go back to Jordan,

53:44

we spent a bit of time, I spent a few hours there actually. And

53:46

I met this wonderful German

53:48

chap called Andreas who was running this sort of big

53:50

team. They have this sense. So you say

53:52

that the known unknowns. And I think this

53:55

came through from talking to Paul and it

53:57

definitely came through talking to some of the other

53:59

scientists there.

53:59

it's like they're just on this constant

54:02

exploration

54:03

and never quite sure what they've found. And actually

54:05

this guy admitted they might do all this research

54:08

and find nothing. Well, the sort

54:10

of rather charming moment where Paul, having

54:13

got a Nobel Prize, suggested,

54:15

and I think it's right. I think all of them say this

54:17

quite modestly, there is an element of luck involved.

54:19

Yeah. Whether you actually, I mean, obviously it's much,

54:22

much more than just luck because they have to work

54:24

incredibly hard. They have to have some very

54:26

shrewd guesses. A lot of the skill

54:28

is working out what to embark on.

54:30

But still, you could put a lot

54:32

of time in and

54:33

not find out what you were hoping

54:36

to find out. The other thing I loved

54:38

about him is he was just such a nice person,

54:41

wasn't he? And from such a kind of extraordinary

54:43

background, but there was a humility about him that

54:45

was

54:46

pretty stunning. I also couldn't, yes,

54:48

incredible. I also, we

54:50

didn't push him on it much and maybe he wouldn't really

54:53

have given us much on it, but

54:55

I cannot imagine the psychological

54:57

impact of discovering in your fifties

55:00

that the people you thought

55:02

were your parents, your grandparents, the person you thought was your

55:04

sister, was your mother, and she effectively

55:06

left you when you were two years old. And

55:09

he found that, am I right? They were all dead by

55:11

the time he found out. So he couldn't really even

55:13

talk to them about it or get any clarity about

55:16

why they

55:17

did it. I mean, he's remarkably kind of understanding,

55:19

but I would have thought you'd find it very, very unsettling.

55:22

Yeah. Although he told us a little bit more afterwards

55:24

about this thing, about how he's on the

55:27

brink of finding out who his father

55:29

was. And his father also dead. Yeah.

55:32

So I mean, it's awful, isn't it? To find all

55:34

this out when everyone's gone and you can't talk to them.

55:36

Yeah. And yeah, he seems

55:38

such a balanced character. He did.

55:41

He did. And he's obviously, he's very, very

55:43

proud labor supporting and labor scientists.

55:46

But I thought from the point of view

55:48

of our agreeing disagreeably, that she had

55:50

a really good balanced

55:52

tone, wasn't overly ideological.

55:55

I think I'm sure it's a brilliant choice

55:57

for the Crook Institute.

55:59

talking to the people who work there, they just absolutely

56:02

adore him. This is why it was interesting, I think, on he

56:04

was political, he's obviously very political in terms

56:06

of his support for labor. And yet

56:09

at the same time, he desperately wants both

56:11

parties to be much more committed to

56:13

science and its importance within the kind of national

56:16

and international life. I was genuinely

56:19

appalled by the thing about Sounak and Hancock

56:21

not replying to his... You made a very clear, the letters

56:24

thing really, and the letters thing really struck

56:26

you. It really, it just offended

56:28

me. Also, not replying to letters,

56:30

it's a pretty basic bit of civil service

56:32

procedure, which you need to sort out. I mean, if I was the

56:35

minister, I would be completely enraged

56:37

that letters aren't being replied to for two months, particularly

56:39

when they're coming from things like director of credit. No, but

56:42

Rory, you can't blame the civil service. There's

56:43

no way. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

56:45

How many letters do you think Rishi

56:48

Sounak receives? Hundreds of thousands.

56:50

How many letters do you think get in front of him? Very

56:52

few. I don't think Rory... Rory. I don't think

56:54

what happened in this case... I've worked there. I've

56:56

worked in that place. In a well-run

56:59

downy street, there is no way

57:01

in the world that a letter

57:04

sent in

57:05

by a Nobel prize

57:07

winning scientist offering advice and help

57:10

at a time of national crisis is not

57:12

making its way to the desk of somebody

57:14

who at least knows whether

57:17

that goes to the prime minister. That's my point.

57:19

No, I agree. I agree on your point. And I would

57:21

say that the system's no good if you're spending

57:24

two months replying to a letter. I'm agreeing with you. Yeah.

57:26

I'm agreeing with you. But you're trying to blame the civil service. No,

57:28

I'm not trying to blame the civil service. You are. You're

57:31

blaming the blob. You're doing the Tory

57:33

thing of blaming the blob. The whole system, Alastair.

57:35

The whole system's no good. And it's

57:37

true if you're a business, a charity, a

57:40

government, there's no excuse to

57:42

spend two months not replying to a letter. Actually,

57:44

whoever it's from. Yeah. One of the most impressive

57:47

things in downy street, and obviously it's changed now because

57:49

of social media as well, but the correspondence department,

57:52

I think part of Fiona's job was

57:54

she had a sort of big thing. And I mean, she used to send me these

57:56

notes about we were getting 7000 letters a month.

57:59

on railways, 9,000 on health, 20,000 on health,

58:02

whatever it was. Also, you know this. Even when

58:07

you've been at the level you've

58:09

been out of the cabinet or me working in Downing

58:12

Street, you still get a little buzz

58:15

out of getting an official letter that says,

58:17

dear Mr. Campbell, thank you for your

58:20

comments. You

58:22

want to feel you've got that point of connection. So even

58:25

if it is just a sort of standard letter, it

58:27

is basic political sense

58:29

and common decency. Big screw

58:32

up that. Couldn't agree more. I talked

58:34

to somebody straight after it who worked

58:36

in German science. So I said, I

58:39

was pretty shocked by the statistics that Paul

58:41

Nuss was putting forward about how much the British government

58:43

invests in research. And they

58:46

said, that's right, but actually

58:49

Europe is terrible on it too, that

58:51

we're all so far behind the United

58:53

States. And then actually,

58:55

Britain is still the place that most of

58:58

Europe looks to, particularly for basic

59:00

research, despite all these German

59:02

entities and institutions. Within

59:05

Europe, it's Britain, but within the world,

59:07

the US is just spending so

59:10

much more in percentage terms, as well as

59:12

in absolute terms,

59:13

and encourage people to go and visit. It's a beautiful

59:16

building. I was lucky because I was there in person, which I'm

59:18

not often. And

59:19

the Crick Institute is part of this general

59:22

development around King's Cross. So

59:24

just on the edge of St Pancras Station and the beautiful

59:27

refurbish of St Pancras Hotel and the British Library

59:29

and all this kind of stuff. And it's open to the public.

59:31

You can go in and look around and visit. And it's

59:34

definitely, definitely worth doing. It was a wonderful.

59:36

Oh, it's fantastic. It's fantastic. And also the

59:38

comms team, because we did

59:40

the interview shortly after I'd just done

59:43

question time. And the comms

59:45

team, Abby, and the comms team were saying, do you think we could get

59:47

question time

59:48

to maybe do an episode from here? No, that

59:51

would be a very, very good idea. So if you're listening

59:53

question time, producer production team, get

59:55

yourself down to the Crick, get Paul Nurse

59:57

on the panel and you're away. And I'm going to put it.

59:59

I'm going to abuse my position on this to say

1:00:02

that I've come across a very

1:00:04

brilliant American scientist that I'm going

1:00:06

to try to sell you on Alastair.

1:00:08

Now that we've opened the door to interviewing scientists,

1:00:11

extraordinary communicator, fantastic

1:00:13

on the brain and on stress, studied

1:00:16

colonies of baboons, knows more about stress

1:00:18

in humans than our brain development you could believe.

1:00:21

Maybe one day we could get another scientist on

1:00:23

because I thought Paul Nurse was amazing. What's his name?

1:00:25

Oh, I thought you were going to ask that. Oh, fucker.

1:00:31

So you're trying to sell me a scientist

1:00:34

whose name you've forgotten. Gone, gone,

1:00:36

gone. And without telling me there's any political

1:00:39

view of this chap at all. He's

1:00:41

so great. He's absolutely amazing. Dr Sapolsky.

1:00:44

Is there

1:00:46

a political element to his life? No, I just think

1:00:48

you'd love the whole thing. He was in Kenya,

1:00:51

Uganda,

1:00:52

but I just think the centrality of stress, I think

1:00:54

leading is the point. I think just in the

1:00:57

same way as you sometimes want to interview leading

1:00:59

footballers or leading actors.

1:01:02

Come on. We've done Brian Cox. It's my response to

1:01:04

Brian Cox. Okay, okay. I

1:01:06

think you'll love him. I think he's funny and

1:01:08

outspoken and beautiful. Okay, thank you guys

1:01:11

very much. All the best.