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Never before in peacetime as the British state faced a challenge from without anything

like this pandemic.

Never before has it faced a challenge from within anything like Brexit.

One man helped lead the government through both the man who was Cabinet Secretary, the

country's top civil servant until last September.

Mark, now Lord said, well sir both Theresa May and Boris Johnson.

It's perhaps no surprise then that he came under heavy political fire.

It wasn't as bad as the real thing, says the man who had a gun in his face from Saddam

Hussein's bodyguards when he was a weapons inspector in Iraq, a barm under his seat when

he was a diplomat in Pakistan.

He went on to be our man, our ambassador in Afghanistan.

Mark said, Lord said, well, joins us welcome to political thinking.

Nick, good to be with you and thank you for that introduction.

To wake up every day as I look at you in the comfort of your home away from the capital,

thinking, thank God I'm not in there anymore and don't have to face this horrendous set

of problems that face this government.

Yeah, of course there's a bit of that.

I've definitely felt the benefits of decompressing and I had a pretty frenetic career.

Almost every job I did was high pressure one way or another certainly for the last 10

years.

So yeah, the opportunity to change pace, to have a better work life balance, to provide

...