Tony Blair: belief

Transcript context

…Let’s go back to TBI for a second. When you give a leader some sensible advice and then they don't follow through on it, what usually is the reason that happens? Is it because it's not politically palatable in their country? Is it because they don't get it? To the extent that you have good advice that’s ignored, why does that happen? It happens usually for two reasons. Number one, it's really hard to make change. What I learned about making change is that there's a certain rhythm to it. When you first propose a reform, people tell you it's a terrible idea. When you're doing it, it's absolute hell. After you've done it, you wish you'd done more of it. Sometimes people just find the system too resistant. There might be vested interests that get in the way of it. I sometimes come across countries that are island states. They have warm weather, but they get all their electricity from heavy fuel oil when they've got limitless amounts of solar and wind that they could be using. There’s a vested interest. The other thing about the government is that it’s a conspiracy of distraction. You've got events and crises and scandals. The most difficult thing is to keep focused when you've got so many things that are diverting you from that core task. Sometimes what we do with our leaders is we say to them, "okay, we're going to do an analysis. Here are your priorities. Here's how much time you spend on them." You end up literally with people spending 4 percent of their time on their priorities. You say, "no wonder you're not succeeding." I'm not necessarily picking on your time, but for any head of state in Western government or any government. How much of the time they spend is fundamentally wasted in the sense of the three key priorities you would have, say, identified for Singapore in the 1960s? Time that’s spent that’s not fundamentally moving the ball forward on things like that. It’s like meeting people, ambassadors, press, whatever. How much of the time is just that?…

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