The Quality of Leadership

Political leadership ain’t what it used to be. That’s the theme of this week’s Three Old Hacks,We all think the summers were warmer (demonstrably not!) and life was rosier when we were young, but the Three Old Hacks put forward a pretty strong case that politicians in Britain are not of the same calibre as those who have gone before them.Boris Johnson says we are facing the biggest challenge since the Second World War with the pandemic, but where is the Recovery Plan to get us out of the hole it has dumped us in? Where’s the Beveridge report and the Bretton Woods of the 2020s?Sports journalist Mihir Bose, Economics editor of the Sunday Times David Smith and political commentator Nigel Dudley also miss the characters of their early days learning their craft together as professional journalists.Remember George Brown, who served as Foreign Secretary in the Labour Government of the 1960s? And the exchange with the Bishop of Lima? ‘No I won’t dance with you. This is not a waltz but the Peruvian national anthem and you sir are drunk!’ or words to that effect.Listen to this week’s podcast from the Three Old Hacks.Get in contact with the podcast by emailing [email protected], we’d love to hear from you!

Om Podcasten

Mihir Bose – former BBC Sports Editor, David Smith – Economics Editor of the Sunday Times and political commentator Nigel Dudley have been friends since they first met while working at Financial Weekly in 1980s. They have kept in touch regularly, setting the world to rights over various lunches and dinners. With coronavirus making that impossible, what do journalists do, deprived of long convivial lunches over a bottle of red wine or several? Why, podcast of course.Get in contact with the podcast by emailing [email protected], we’d love to hear from you!