Show 260 - Craig Oliver
Matt Forde's Political Party
The Political Party
4.7 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 17 January 2022
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This is about way more than just politics. Since leaving Number 10, Craig has been reflecting on his life and why he'd always found it a grind. There's an important lesson in how we judge those who work in politics. To the outside world, it may have looked like Craig had it all. But he's never been comfortable with himself and in taking time out, has been forced to confront why. This is a deeply personal and reflective interview about the way we live our lives, and what the political implications of that are. Of course there are more overtly political moments and Craig gives his assessment of the storm engulfing current Prime Minister Boris Johnson. For the main, this is something a bit different to the usual, a calming experience that may help you find inner peace. Which might be handy for those currently working in Number 10, or those of us who read about what they've been up to.
Follow Craig on Twitter: @CraigOliver100
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the political party. Today's guest is Craig Oliver, David Cameron's |
| 0:13.0 | former director of communications, former BBC Bigwig and now host of his own podcast, |
| 0:17.6 | desperately seeking wisdom. And we talk about politics in the show. As you would imagine, |
| 0:21.6 | we start off talking about contemporary stuff. And of course, his view of having worked |
| 0:26.2 | in number 10 about what's been going on there lately is brilliant. But this is about something |
| 0:31.0 | far bigger and far deeper. And Craig is someone who, from the outside, looks like someone who's |
| 0:36.2 | always had it all very successful, very good at his job. But he's been forced to reflect |
| 0:41.9 | in recent years about happiness and how he actually feels about life. And that's why he |
| 0:45.7 | started doing this podcast. And there is this, I think just throughout this, it's almost |
| 0:50.7 | like meditation talking to Craig, the find a sense of an apiece of the course of this interview, |
| 0:59.0 | it just makes you think about life a bit. And it's very easy sometimes when you're just in the |
| 1:03.2 | middle of work all the time, or if you've got kids, a busy life in whatever way that means to you, |
| 1:08.4 | they're often really think about how to actually make self happy and how to improve your life. And |
| 1:15.7 | sometimes it does take someone like Craig, who is taking that time out to effectively think |
| 1:20.8 | for the rest of us. And his new podcast is superb and some of the interviews on there with Richard |
| 1:24.7 | Curtis, George Aligay, the latest edition with Ruth Davidson is incredible. So I can't recommend it |
| 1:29.7 | highly enough. Don't forget you can come and see the show live now in the West End. The next few |
| 1:35.3 | guests are absolutely incredible. I'm Monday the 24th of January. I'm so excited to be interviewing |
| 1:41.4 | Angel Rainer for the first time. She is one of the biggest stars in modern politics. So charismatic. |
| 1:49.2 | And for so long, there were people on the left saying, why doesn't the Labour have these big |
| 1:54.6 | characters anymore? She is a big character and someone with a very big future. And she's already |
| 1:59.2 | deputies leader of the Labour Party. She's led an incredible life already and she's so young. |
... |
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