BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts

Politics can be a lonely trade. Imagine, for example, being a passionate remainer in Boris

Johnson's cabinet, or a lawyer committed to defending judges in a government committed

to rolling back judicial overreach, or a boy supporting Margaret Thatcher's Conservatives

in clenethely and South Wales during the miners' strike. My guest on political thinking this

week has no need to imagine. He's Robert Buckland, the Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor,

the Minister in charge of the law and the courts at a time of deep political divisions,

competing rights and angry protests, a time in other words when the law itself is a subject,

a bitter dispute. Robert Buckland, welcome to political thinking.

Well, thanks for having me on there. It's a pleasure.

I listed the ways in which you might be politically lonely, which is lonely,

are being a Tory growing up in clenethely, a remainer in Boris Johnson's cabinet,

or a defender of the judges when Dominic Cummings is trying to roll back their powers.

I think it was my young life that taught me a lot about solitude, if you like, loneliness,

plowing a different path, taking the road less travelled, and not worrying about it,

not worrying about what other people might think, not really caring about what other people might

think of my views, but understanding that in doing so, the path taken did mean that perhaps I

wasn't going to be the most popular person in the neighbourhood, or necessarily somebody who wanted

to fit in particularly. I'd never really remember worrying about having, you know, wanting to fit

in with other people, always feeling perhaps a sense of being just being a little different,

but not really worrying about that too much.

Yeah, people used to joke that you were the only Tory in the village.

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