Lewis Goodall
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
I think his most unsuccessful period politically is the period that he now regards at his best, which is basically late Blair, which is actually after he stopped winning elections, where I think he went, as you already said, into his masochistic phase where he basically starts saying, look, the public can like it or lump it, but this is what we're doing under all circumstances.
There is no coincidence.
That is precisely when Blair's power started to diminish.
And when I hear him talking about AI now, I mean, that bit in the essay, which I thought, to be honest, was just ridiculous, was when he said that what is coming in this technology revolution led by developments in AI, which will change everything.
I mean everything.
There is no point in debating whether this technological revolution is a good or bad thing.
Just know it's a thing.
In fact, it is the thing.
What on earth does that mean?
Well, because yes, but then the question about politics is how does it change it?
I mean, whenever you have technological revolution or technological change, it is the business of democratic politics...
No, he doesn't say that.
He doesn't say, OK, and then we have to have a discussion as a country about how democratically we decide to allow this to be rolled out or whatever it is.
He just says that we just have to accept it, which is precisely how he used to talk about globalisation.
The famous 2005 speech, in his conference speech, where he says there's no point debating globalisation, you might as well debate the changing of the seasons.
And what happened there?
Precisely as a result of that sort of politics, you have tremendous populist backlash, which builds up over the decades.
Political actors who say, hang on a minute, no, globalisation can be stopped.
It can be changed, as indeed the succeeding 20 years proved that it could.
And if progressive politicians or mainstream politicians, for example, with the upcoming technological changes, turn around to electorates and just go, tough, this is coming.