Public evidence record
Published podcast speaker
Claim ledger
20 transcript-backed records
01 / evaluation
“Well, it’s an interesting point because, of course, there’s no actual practical job that a crown does.”
02 / belief
“I think that was incompatible with a peaceful set of circumstances because it wasn’t widespread enough.”
03 / belief
“One of the great pleasures, I would say, of traveling around the UK is that places that are maybe only 15 miles apart can look completely different because of that.”
04 / belief
“I think the answer is, it was really, in my view, overwhelmingly about religion.”
05 / belief
“To reimagine ourselves or to imagine the world of 17th-century England where religion is such a strong force, it involves a mental leap that I think sometimes people have been reluctant to do.”
06 / belief
“I think a lot of people have forgotten that there was a revolution in the British Isles, and it was a republic for 10 years.”
07 / belief
“I think the buildings of that period, the political thought, the poetry — all these things we should all know more about, we should teach it more to our children, and we should celebrate it.”
08 / belief
“If we think of somebody like Louis XIV in France, it’s clear that over and above any of those practical requirements or questions of means, the magnificence of the monarch, and therefore of the institution of monarchy and so on, was something that he realized and expressed in buildings on a massive scale.”
09 / belief
“I think there’s a debate to be had about what the basis of that is, in terms of how you would come to have a seat in it. But I believe that a concern for our environment and the buildings and places in which we live and were built by our ancestors is a really universal one, and it doesn’t require you to have a particular social slice of society in the House of Lords to ensure it’s protected.”
10 / commitment
“I think Handel, whose music, I hope, we will be hearing at the coronation, which is coming up next year.”
11 / evaluation
“As far as making sure that old windows are doing their job and keeping you warm, because there’s a real, real risk at the moment — with the completely correct focus on insulation in buildings — that all our beautiful old sash windows, with their wonderful handmade glass, get put in skips, and UPVC windows get put in instead.”
12 / evaluation
“I think for that generation in the ’50s and ’60s, the sense that we simply have to do things differently because this pattern of life, this pattern of existence, this way we’ve operated as a society has been so destructive.”
13 / evaluation
“We don’t need to have it anymore,” that would do anything other than cause infinitely more conflict and aggro because it would open up the whole question of all these other moments of conflict when the stone was taken.”
14 / recommendation
“I’m not enough wired into the way the system works, but I think there needs to be a clear national policy of exploring that.”
15 / preference
“We love an electric blanket because you don’t need to heat your bedroom because you don’t need your bedroom too warm, but it doesn’t mean when you get into bed, you are not freezing.”
16 / evaluation
“The nature of our buildings — I think you are right, which is that, on the whole, people go to them because they’re really interested in that kind of thing, and so it would be a counterintuitive thing then to trash it.”
17 / evaluation
“Which is why, in this country, we have this thing called the listing system, where there’s a process of identifying buildings which are important, and what’s called listing them — putting them on a list — which means that if you own them, you can’t change them without getting permission, which is a way of ensuring that things which you as an owner or I as an owner might not treat with scorn, that the interest of generations to come are represented in that.”
18 / evaluation
“I suppose the balance that’s been struck between a nonexecutive head of state in the form of the monarch and the executive in the form of the government, the prime minister, and so on — but without dialing down much of the bling and the splendor and the ceremony of the monarchy, even though the power has gone — has turned out to be a very successful formulation. It’s interesting, because I don’t know that it would necessarily have been obvious that that would’ve worked.”
19 / evaluation
“I was born and brought up in Scotland. But I think that if you’re interested in the 17th century, the additional perhaps emphasis or lens that it gives you is, first of all, the memory of how the union came about in the first place.”
20 / prediction
“I think there’s a lot of work going on with young architects in the field and really trying to crack this business about neighborhoods and housing, not least because, in this country, there’s a real housing crisis, because we’re a small country with a lot of people, and challenges of building are very great.”