The

The Hello and welcome to rock and roll politics, the twice weekly podcast with me, Steve Richards.

Thanks so much for tuning in wherever you are in the UK and indeed the rest

of the world. And as ever, we have got a lot to cram in our time together. In a moment,

I'll be having a conversation with the former cabinet secretary, Robin Butler, now Lord Butler,

because I thought it would be interesting

to hear about that role from someone who performed it, so to speak, under three prime

ministers of contrasting personality. Lord Butler was cabinet secretary under Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair.

So he saw at first hand all the epic dramas whirling around them. And I thought it would

be interesting to hear from him because Simon Case, the current cabinet secretary,

is in the news one way or another most days. Questions being posed of him fairly or unfairly,

did he warn Rishy Sunak about Robb? Did he tell Rishy Sunak about X, Y and Z? Did he warn Johnson about all the many acts of

apparent misconduct that went on during that Johnson regime? Quite often his name comes up.

So what is that role? How much influence does it have over a prime minister? How close do you get

to a prime minister? Robin Butler sheds much light. And indeed, he worked very closely with

prime ministers before Margaret Thatcher. His first prime minister he worked closely with

was Ted Heath.

So anyway, we're going to hear from him on the current situation and the context to the current situation.

Before that, just a brief few comments on Nicholas Sturgeon, maybe I'll do more next week.

But her decision to go, obviously one made

relatively recently, will have consequences because one of the issues in politics at any time

is the quality of a leader. And there is no doubt that one of the key factors in the

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