General Sir Patrick Sanders

speaker

1,311 appearances 12 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 2 Sep

General Sir Patrick Sanders’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 12 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 4.

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The General & The Journalist · How Putin made North Korea richer – and more dangerous · 19 Aug 2026 podcast

I mean most senior officers tend to say that they would give anything to exchange places with you.

Don't believe a word of it.

I've spent more time than I care to mention living in a wet shell scrape in Brecon, and you're welcome to it.

It's your turn now.

But I think on the on the issue of public support, you've you've put your finger on something incredibly important.

I mean, we should be honest that the Br Britain's armed forces, the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force and the British Army do enjoy, I mean, extraordinarily high levels of support, you know, higher than almost any other institution, and a lot of respect from the British public, and we do inspire national pride.

And there's also, you know, as you'll have read in the papers, a lot of general support for increased defense spending, but that tends to be as long as it doesn't affect people's pockets.

The problem we have is that we are admired in the abstract, but we're not well understood.

And nor do the British public yet understand the threats that we face.

the need to invest, or indeed the need to mobilise society for national resilience in a way that other countries and most obviously the Nordics and Sweden and Finland have done.

So that's one of the reasons why Tom and I started this podcast.

And we will try to serve you by making the case every week.

So that when you do find yourself being sent into harm's way, as you will, sooner or later, that you're well trained, you're well equipped, and you've got the country at your back.

mean I could spend all day on this, Tom.

So off the top of my head I'd say two things.

First of all, be curious, be intellectually curious.

One of the reasons that British officers and NCOs carry so much influence and punch above their weight is because there is an enormous amount of intellectual curiosity and you become masters of your trade and that is your first job.

But the most important piece of advice, and you will have heard this every single day as you went through Sandhurst and had that motto of serve to lead drummed into you is Look after your soldiers, put them first, they will look after you.

And thanks for listening and do send in any of your questions to general and journalist at the times dot co dot uk.

And please follow us and give us a rating, a review or a comment wherever you're listening to the podcast, because it helps more people discover us.

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