Name: 約翰-博科夫（John Bercow）講述了他從右到左的政治歷程--以及擔任議長的10年。 (John Bercow on his political journey from right to left - and 10 years as Speaker)
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T10:20:33.000Z
Duration: 47 min 44 s
Description: 【看影片學英語】數萬部 YouTube 影片，搭配英漢字典即點即查，輕鬆掌握單字發音與用法，長久累積看電影不必再看字幕。

hello and welcome to ways to change the world.

I'm Krishnan, Guru Murthy, and this is the podcast in which we talked to extraordinary people about the big ideas in their lives.

過去完成式

On the events that have helped shape Thumb on My guest Today kind of became a star all over the world last year, but had been a prominent man in British public life for many, many years.

John Berko stepped down after 10 years, a speaker of the House of Commons at the end of last year, and he's hugely famous in America now, and his his version of order is obviously shouted at him all around the world.

But you've also made a huge political journey, really, from being a right wing conservative to a man regarded as probably sympathetic Labour Party could have defected on, became speaker instead.

How good a shape do you think Bush's democracy is in right now?

I think he could be in a lot better shape than it is.

That's not a commentary on anyone particular political party.

I think that the difficulties that we face have substantially bean spawned and certainly exacerbated by the huge eruptions the divisions and the lingering bitterness over Brexit.

That's not going to dissipate overnight, or even necessarily very quickly.

But I hope if there is a mindset across the political parties that says, Let's try to bring people together and where we disagree, let's try to disagree agreeably.

That will probably hasten the process of reconciliation.

But I think part of the difficulty is this riz urgent populism, which is a phenomenon not just in the UK but in other parts of Europe and in the United States.

And idea really of simple answers, Christian toe often quite complex and multifaceted questions.

That's one part of the difficulty of our democracy.

And the other, I suppose, in the UK is a consequence off the democratic process and in our system, there's nothing new about this is not Boris Johnson's fault.

It's not an indictment of here, most prime minister of any particular political party.

The other problem is that if you have a government with a very large majority, because we have a winner takes all system, the opportunities for the opposition are far fewer, and the scope for parliamentary assertiveness, which I happen to think is a very important part of a functioning, pluralist democracy.

That scoop for parliamentary assertiveness is much reduced.

But how fundamentally worried about Britain and stability are you?

I mean, you mention the threat of populism.

We now have, ah, big majority under this government.

I mean, are these things that you just see a sort of challenges as part of the normal up and down the British politics?

Two British democracy A moment, you think?

Well, as I say, I think that the tendency of people to think that there are simple solutions to complex problems is something of a challenge.

And I think that if I talk about populism, I would say that it's a great thing, a democratic, egalitarian, enabling thing that people who are not elected on don't occupy positions of authority and don't work in the media can express their views on social networking sites.

So I think that social media, in that sense, are a good thing.

Where they cease to be quite such a good thing and are challenging for a democratic system is when people think that it is quite impossible for anyone to hold of you legitimately.

And I think in recent years there has been a burgeoning phenomenon off ad hominum abuse, abuse of democratic legislatures, abuse in particular of women, abusive ethnic minority parliamentarian since on Andi.

Those are problems, but they're not attributable toe one party or another auto one prime minister or another.

And therefore they shouldn't be the stuff of parties.

An attack, if you are asking me, Do I think there are some problems which afflict our democracy and about which we ought to have an adult conversation?

I think that there are on one of thumb is the rise in frankly vulgar abuse on the Internet.

I thought myself sitting in the speaker's chair during the Brexit debates with Way in which some of the prints a pulled minority voices on the remain aside, were abused, rubbished, vilified, intimidated and threatened was intolerable in that that sort of appalling attitude towards other people really bled into parliamentary debate around the resumption of Parliament after the unlawful propagation.

Now that's that's where you begin your book.

Your autobiography, unspeakable, actually begins with a lot of prologue, but a prorogued in which you talk about that.

Were you shocked at the language that was being used.

I was disappointed, but let's try to keep this in perspective, Christian.

I was disappointed, and I say in that pro rock or prorogued chapter at the start of the book that there was a very toxic atmosphere when parliament came back in the latter part of September and I'd never known quite such a high octane toxic and at times abusive atmosphere.

But I don't want it to be thought, and I'm not arguing that that was, in any sense, the norm.

That has not been the case in Parliament most of the time, indeed, even in the previous two or three years, it was not the case and I was speaker from 2009 to 2019 for 10 years and four months and for the bulk of the time that I sat in the chair, debates were characterized by robust but on the whole respectful disagreement, and I'm a big fan of my colleagues.

I think the Brexit fatigue which afflicted the country, also afflicted the house.

When people said well, the house was divided that reflected the divisions in the country And when I talk about fatigue, I suppose what I mean is that just as there were people in the country getting fed up with it, there were colleagues, in a sense, almost tiring, of repeating the same points over and over and over again.

But if there are opponents were going to do so, they had to do say there was an inevitability about it.

But I think probably because of the sheer intensity and concentrated focus on the Brexit issue over such a long period, people became frazzled.

They sometimes were irascible towards each other.

There was, on occasion, less respectful, intolerant atmosphere than had hitherto obtained but measured.

Over the 10 years, I would say parliament operated very successfully and I would myself, argue Krishnan against those who contend the opposite that from 2016 Parliament did its job.

There is a narrative out there very popular, of course, in parts of the newspapers that it was a useless parliament, that it was a rotten parliament, that it was a legitimate parliament, one or two senior ministers, even saying this parliament is a disgrace.

This parliament has no moral right to say I don't agree with any of that.

I think that the last problem was actually a good parliament.

Yes, it was undecided on the issue of Brexit in that parliament was unresolved.

But that was because the way genuine strongly held on irreconcilable differences of opinion in parliament, as the were in the country on the parliament didn't just appear from nowhere.

That parliament was elected in June 2017 almost a year after the U referendum on Dhe.

It had a duty to question to probe, to scrutinize, to challenge the government of the day across the field of public policy and most notably, of course, in its pursuit of Brexit.

And it did so on the idea that it was under some sort of bound and duty just to vote through the Brexit legislation and deal proposed to parliament by the Theresa May government is quite wrong.

So my overall point is the last parliament was a good parliament.

I celebrate my parliamentary colleagues and measured over a decade, I think parliament was more lively, more interesting, more dynamic, more urgent, more unpredictable and more challenging towards the executive branch than had previously bean the case.

And it is at least part of the responsibility of the speaker to champion parliament, acting a scrutiny rhe of the executive.

Um, I proud of the fact that we got through a lot more questions during my time at question time sessions in the past.

I am on my proud of the fact that I granted hundreds of urgent questions to colleagues so that they could question government ministers.

I am I proud of granting time for emergency debates in a way that wasn't previously fashionable and didn't on any significant level happened.

I wasn't supporting the government and I wasn't supporting the opposition.

I waas supporting Parliament on that won me a lot of friends, Andi.

It also made me a lot of enemies, and I'm completely relaxed and sanguine about that.

We'll come back to that, but let's let's wind back to the beginning.

I mean, we did this interview through the prism of changing the world, But when did you first want to change the world?

I'd like to say that I wanted to change the world when I first came into politics.

If I'm really brutally honest with you, Christian, I don't think I did.

I think in a very general sense I wanted good policies to be pursued, and I wanted the best for my country.

But when I first became interested in politics, I was a conservative, so I wasn't mainly interested in changing the world.

I was mainly interested in keeping the best of what was already there.

Now, admittedly, the period of the Thatcher government did bring about transformational change, and I was a supporter of that.

But I don't think I sort of woke up in the morning and said to myself, John, you've got to play your part in changing the world And secondly, and I absolutely admit this.

Lots of people say, Oh, I came into politics to make the world a better place and a lot of people probably do.

The truth is that when I first aspired to come into politics, I wanted to serve the cause of number one.

I was an ambitious young chap in a hurry on dhe.

I don't think I really had a deep mission to change the country or the world, making them a better place.

I had a generalized commitment to the public.

I had a very keen preoccupation with trying to advance the prospects of J.

Oh, now you very candidate and very refreshing.

It happens t o ky and pretend that, you know, I got some great idealistic commitment.

I think, actually, my journey is a very unusual and a typical journey.

Whereas I've gone from right towards the left, landing in the center.

I didn't want to be a member of another political party, but, you know, I had long since I have long since ceased to espouse conservative views.

And I have become a lot more idealistic on progressive and preoccupied with social justice and the evil of global poverty and the need to reduce inequality than I ever was as a young person because who you really are, I find fascinating because, you know, you're one of the most famous public figures in Britain.