Partying Prime Ministers

Speaker A: 00:00:00

Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast produced by me, Fraser McGruer for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts, we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Chris Wragg, Jordan Fermanis and Nick Hare of Aleph Insights. And this week we're discussing prime ministers who party.

Speaker B: 00:00:28

Nick. Yeah, well, when we think of political parties, we don't normally think that they involve dancing and drinking. Well, maybe we do. Finland has very young brackets for a prime minister, prime minister called Sanna Marin. Yeah. 36. Yeah, I remember this guy. Yeah. Anyway, she was recently filmed, if you can credit it, dancing and enjoying herself. What? At a party. A prime minister? Yeah. Actually, just having fun, letting go a bit. Obviously, the population of Finland were outraged. No, they weren't. I bet things were like, this is fine. Well, apparently they did receive what are described as dozens of complaints. I don't know who you complain to. Whether you complain, whether you ring up the Finnish parliament or something. I'd like to complain about my prime minister having fun. I wonder what the Finnish equivalent is of Tunbridge Wells. But anyway. Yeah. So she was unapologetic, saying, I am human and I, too, sometimes long for joy, light and fun amidst these dark clouds. Seems very Finnish way of putting things to me. But it does raise the question, actually. OK, I obviously personally, I've got no problem with her partying at all. But it actually do we expect something different from our leaders? Should they be enjoying themselves in public? Should they be enjoying themselves in private, maybe, but not in public? Or perhaps should they be not really enjoying themselves at all? Get back to work. There's a homeless person in Helsinki. Yeah. And well, you know, is it right that you're out having fun when you should be reading briefs or whatever it is you do if you're a prime minister? Yes. You know, exactly. So that's the question really is, was Sanne Marin out of line or is she just actually just perfectly OK or something in between?

Speaker A: 00:02:26

I'm worried because is this going to be a really simple podcast, a quick one? Because I mean, instinctively, one just feels, yeah, of course, that's fine. Not a problem.

Speaker B: 00:02:35

Well, I may have some I may cause you to have a small rethink at some point. OK.

Speaker A: 00:02:40

And just thinking about, you know, let's say footage emerged of Chris Wragg at a party, letting it all go, having a dance and a chat and a drink. And again, I would just feel that's OK. I'd be shocked. I would be. I think it was a deep fake. Yeah. And, you know, our prime minister is different from the rest of us as well, because we probably think it's all OK for us to have, you know, to let our hair down.

Speaker C: 00:03:07

Jordan. Well, I think the crucial thing is Chris isn't yet prime minister. No. But I think, yeah, I don't think it's it's it's not wrong or sort of being a fuddy-duddy to expect that there's a level of sort of seriousness that comes with being prime minister, especially on the international stage. But I think it's also about what Finland might want to project. You know, they've got this young prime minister. They're very close to Russia, which is obviously quite authoritarian. So maybe it's in their interest even to project themselves as this kind of carefree, you know, diverse kind of fun loving country. So I think there's there's there's probably maybe a potentially political angle there as well.

Speaker D: 00:03:57

Yeah. Chris? Yeah. Well, I think there's also an element of of what it means to have gravitas. Right. Which which we tie up in the notion of leadership. So if you think about the queen, for example, on the odd occasion, she she sort of let her hair down for the public. Right. If you think of the Paddington Bear thing or the James Bond thing for the Olympics. However, that was the tiny, tiniest minority of her public image. Right. And and it was so notable because it was so out of character. And there's an element, I think, around leadership, which is tied up in in this notion of gravitas. And this and to me, what that means is an element of apartness, an element of of having very high standards in the same way as you don't want to see your parents dancing at your school disco. You don't necessarily want to see your prime minister dancing at the disco. And and that in some way undermines it's not just about is it morally right for them to party? No, that's fine. We just don't want to see it. Thank you. And we want to pretend it doesn't exist for a reason that is to do with, I suppose, wanting to put leaders on a pedestal and make them not like you. You don't want to see them falling over when they're drunk. You know, you want to see them being serious and stateswoman. Yeah, but now.

Speaker B: 00:05:37

So I agree. But the question is, whether that is, well, okay, I wonder if it's one of those things where you sort of feel like, well, I'm not personally affected by this, but lots of other people are. And so I think it's important for them to, you know, behave themselves in inverted commas. Because, yeah, that's my question, really, is are we doing it actually, because we personally would look down on a prime minister who's partying? Or is it because we think it's not the done thing, because other more less astute, less insightful people will be affected by it? So I mean, I suppose I'm saying, Chris, are you, do you slightly look down on? No, I don't. Because I

Speaker D: 00:06:22

think a prime minister is slightly different. But if I think about the Queen, like it would really devalue the concept of your head of state, if they were frivolous and stupid, if they were going on reality TV shows. And you know, I mean, look at the Matt Hancock issue, you know, admittedly, he's taking time off his actual job. But I think a lot of people have a problem simply with the fact that you're seeing this person do ridiculous things. And they're supposed to not be ridiculous in some way. So yes, I am slightly, I find it naff in some way, which I can't quite boil down to. Well, that's why I'm interested in boiling down.

Speaker B: 00:07:05

Yeah. Because I was thinking about this in the context of like, okay, we know, right? Now, this is not against the law to say this, right? But we know that the Queen must have done a poo from time to time, right? We know that that's true. It's a biological fact. Obviously, we don't necessarily want to see a video of it happening. But I think we also like really deep down, sort of want to pretend it doesn't happen. So I've sort of been trying to introspect, and I am struggling to work out what it is that puts me off. And I think we've touched on some things which are related. This thing about your parents. Yeah, slightly having fun is an interesting one, which I've got some other questions about that. Yeah, yeah. So sorry, we'll bring in Jordan. But

Speaker A: 00:07:55

also, it just strikes me, I think it might be difficult for us three, and maybe Jordan as well. He's welcome to this party's in the Commonwealth. It might be difficult for us to separate, of course, head of state, unusually in the UK, separated from the head of government. I just think we might be too tied up with our royalty and how we think of them. Because if we think about a prime minister, even though we might not like to think about Rishi Sunak going to the loo, I doubt it's as off-putting as thinking about the Queen or even King Charles doing that.

Speaker B: 00:08:31

That's a very unattractive image of the subject of defecating monarchs.

Speaker A: 00:08:38

Let's get less pathological. Yeah, but also thinking about, you know, so even think about Boris Johnson or Liz Truss having, or who's prime minister now, Rishi Sunak, having a party. It kind of feels okay. I don't particularly want to... Yeah, nobody had a problem with Boris Johnson. No, that's something I want to drill into. Well, his was just wrong place, wrong time. We want to drill into that a little bit. And although there are elements of someone, you know, it does go back to it that it's not very becoming as well. I just don't feel the same, like, instinctive as I would with the royal family,

Speaker B: 00:09:12

even Prince William, let's say. Anyway. Okay. Sorry, but I think. Yeah. So we need to. I've got a question,

Speaker C: 00:09:19

really. But yeah, Jordan, go for it. I just had some thoughts before we moved on about this idea of you've got, I guess, the the office itself and what that represents. And then you've got these like human beings that inhabit it. And sometimes there's a conflict between those two things. So but I don't think, you know, like the same way that maybe, you know, President Zelensky was a comedian. I'm sure he had lots of fun before he took office. And then now he has to be serious and he has to be a president and this sort of thing. So I think something definitely there's a there's a something happens once you become head of state or prime minister where you have to adapt. You have to change your behavior and maybe make yourself less human and less fun. Yeah. But I guess a part of there's always a balance between just your natural instincts as well.

Speaker A: 00:10:09

And wanting to, you know, it's a tricky, it's a tricky path to tread because also as a politician, famously, you need to be able to connect. Right. And so people don't just want an automaton. And yet they do one who doesn't part. I mean, it's a tricky one.

Speaker B: 00:10:22

Yeah. So so some questions. Is it OK? Let's say your your builder has finished work. It's 5pm. They haven't finished the window yet. Right. But they go down the pub and have a good time

Speaker A: 00:10:37

instead of finishing your window. Perfectly OK. Well, only because I mean, expectations are so low of builders finishing a job in my experience that it wouldn't bother me. No, it wouldn't

Speaker B: 00:10:48

bother you. And furthermore, you think, well, I'm paying you to do the window. I'm not really paying you not to go and have fun. But what about going down the pub and having fun when your kid is ill at home? OK. Not as OK. Right. Yeah. OK. So so these are situations where someone's got some responsibility to do something. I'm sure you have. But we'll take it with you, obviously. But it's less OK. Right. And I think so what I was thinking was I think it boils down to the nature of responsibility and how we interpret that responsibility. And I'm not saying there's only two types of responsibility, like parental or and and and kind of running a country. Well, well, but it does boil down to what to the nature, I think partly to the nature of what we think the job of a prime minister is to be. Right. Now, I feel like there's something which is a sort of intrinsic where you have a sort of intrinsic responsibility, like being a parent or I think you could argue the queen. There's a kind of intrinsic responsibility, which means that you are expected to share in the suffering of your people and that you don't deserve to go and have fun while there is one person who's miserable out there. Whereas whereas if if, you know, if we think about where actually the prime minister is doing a job and we're paying them to do that job and their job is to rock up a parliament, say a few things, you know, sign a few papers, represent us abroad, et cetera. If we frame it like that, then it becomes it feels more intuitive to me that when they've downed tools that are five, they can do what they like. And I like their responsibility extends only as far as the job they've got. So I feel like here there may be a difference in how we or how people see a prime minister. Yeah. And they might think you're you're neglecting you're neglecting your duty, your intrinsic duty as a leader. If you're going to go and have fun, you shouldn't be having fun. It's just not on. Yeah. Yeah. So it's just a hypothesis there. But I think because I feel like it partly explains the difference between a queen and a prime minister. Yeah. And then a builder, you know, all responsible for things. But there's a transactional element at the bottom and there's a more of an intrinsic element at the top. Yeah. I think I

Speaker C: 00:13:02

think you've framed it nicely there. Yeah. There's also an interesting question maybe about why having fun would necessarily detract from like, why would we think that someone just enjoying themselves, which we all do in various different ways, why that would mean that they're doing a worse job or that they're not fulfilling their duties? Like, what about that signals that? Because it's something

Speaker A: 00:13:29

that we all do. Yeah. And also what's the opposite of that? Because let's say footage emerged of the Finnish prime minister sitting in a room on her own crying. And, you know, and she said, well, I was crying because I'm really upset about all the homeless people in Helsinki. Fine. Yes, that's what we want. Perfect. Well done. Job done. Chris, you were going to say something.

Speaker D: 00:13:50

Well, yeah, I was going to say, you know, I suppose it boils down to what what is having having fun and, you know, and what's like you say, what's the contrast to that? And I don't think the contrast is misery. I think the contrast is a dignified persona. Right. And so what is what is fun in contrast to that? It's the it's the the shedding of that that dignity. Right. But not necessarily. But it's about not keeping on the shackles of of of what is expected of you and and doing the things you want to do. There's a selfishness about fun. And there's also I'm struggling to reach for the word willingness to expose your true self to authenticity. Yeah. Authenticity, perhaps. Yeah. There's a there's a word in the back of my brain that I know that I know matches it. But basically, you you put yourself out there when you're having fun in a way that if you're being dignified, you don't. So if you want to dance to music and you may dance badly, you know, you go for it. Right. And and people see that that that element of you and whereas when you're being dignified, you're keeping those shutters down. So you're exposing yourself, I suppose, in a way. Yeah. It's about being unrestrained. Yeah. And and so, you know, partly it's selfish and partly it's being unrestrained. And I think that that's what fun kind of is. And there's obviously something about that that we don't we don't like seeing.

Speaker B: 00:15:37

Well, I'm not sure. Well, it's as simple as well. I'll give you some examples of sort of pursuits and we can think about how how much it's going to bother us. So just sort of bringing it around.

Speaker A: 00:15:50

So I liked your point earlier of what we expect of a prime minister. And I was thinking of a different kind of opposite as well. Well, what do we expect from our rock stars? So you don't want to think about you. You definitely want Keith Richards to be there partying mayhem that but you would be disappointed to see footage of him sitting down with his accountant. Right. And it's it's it's that it's what we want, what we expect from certain kinds of figures, isn't it? I think. But Nick, I interrupt you. Go on. That's a that is a really interesting

Speaker B: 00:16:17

contrast. And I wonder if it's well, maybe get onto that. Like what are you? Yes. This question of are you exposing a trait? Are you signalling a trait which is genuinely undesirable? Not just we like to think it's undesirable. But so, for example, yeah, is drinking and dancing in an unrestrained way? Does it expose a certain kind of emotional incontinence, a certain lack of self-restraint, which actually is undesirable? Like if she's going to go and dance and have a glass of wine, how do you know she went to declare war on Latvia? You know, you never know. So I think I and I'm not saying that's true. Obviously, I'm on the side of the party is here, but but I do think it's fair. It's fair to ask that question. Well, this is so what I was thinking of was other fun that prime ministers have is is unproblematic. And I'll give you some examples. Ted Heath sailing, Bill Clinton playing the saxophone, Vladimir Putin, horse riding, Boris Johnson famously making model buses, something that he's really been into. There is there is a there is a theory that he said that in order to in order to bury links about the Boris bus. But anyway, the but anyway, the point is, I don't think anyone really, really objects to those. And yet they're all examples of having fun. But they're all examples of having fun, which don't really involve attributes or traits or behaviour, which you might imagine was undesirable in a prime minister. So so yes, I'm not saying I'm not saying it's correct. But I'm saying it's fair to ask that question. And your example of the rock star actually really made me think, well, actually, not just do we expect them to be emotionally like the point of an artist perhaps is to expose their emotions, that they're actually meant to do that. And if it turned out in private, they were, you know, kind of just interested in making different types of cheese or something. It might reveal that it's a sham. There might, it might feel like there was a there was a kind of mismatch. That we're not seeing the authentic them. Yeah, yeah. You know, which actually is just as important in a rock star as as being sort of together. Yeah, is in a prime minister. Although brilliant. You get some rock stars who totally pull off both. Yeah. I mean, I mentioned cheese because didn't someone like Damon Albarn or something? He's one of the other Blur men. I think about Rod Stewart,

Speaker A: 00:18:43

who if ever there was a rock star who lived that rock star lifestyle, definitely Rod Stewart. Yeah. But also really into his model trains, like massively into them, but maybe not quite at the same times

Speaker B: 00:18:53

or maybe I'm not sure. Oddly though, I wouldn't say that Rod Stewart, I love him. He's a great musician. I wouldn't have said he was at the cooler end of the rock star spectrum. Well,

Speaker A: 00:19:04

I think looking from our standpoint now and especially as a child growing up when we kind of did, because I always thought he was super naff. That's what I mean. Much like Stevie Wonder and Elton John were. Yeah, yeah. But with someone like Rod Stewart, I only became aware of him with Do You Think I'm Sexy? By which time his credibility, I would say, is well on the way down and had been in the late 70s. But then when you look at him with the new faces, great songs at the top of his game, worldwide phenomenon, proper rock star. And so maybe I just think I was just slightly late for him. I think he properly, but he's definitely a bit naff now, of course. But I've lost my point. But where do we want to go? Well, there's a few things I've still got,

Speaker B: 00:19:48

I've got on my list of potential theories and explanations. So we discussed the fact that it might be a signal of a kind of undesirable trait, which I think is interesting. The types of responsibility that they have that may also be underlying it. But I actually wanted to return to the hypocrisy point, because this is, well, not return to, but sort of unpick that a bit, because I think there's two types of hypocrisy floating about here. And I think it's worth making a distinction between them. So, you know, I was saying perhaps we wanted them to do it in private, but not necessarily in public. There's a sort of dignity element. You know, we don't, we know that the Queen does the poo, but we don't want her to do it in public.

Speaker D: 00:20:42

That would be quite a ceremony for the opening of Parliament, wouldn't it?

Speaker B: 00:20:45

Definitely not now. We don't want her to do it. So there's, you know, there's that sort of, is that hypocritical? It might be to the extent that someone is sort of claiming that that isn't happening. So now if, you know, this is where I think it might depend on the person. It might depend on the Prime Minister. My impression of Sanna Marin, and I know nothing whatsoever about Finnish politics, I know nothing about her other than, you know, having seen her on the news. But my impression is she presents quite an earnest sort of public image, right? I don't think anyone would bat an eyelid at seeing Boris Johnson at a party, dancing, who would be dancing in an embarrassing dad-like way, but that would work. Yeah, it would fit. It would totally fit. And I don't think it would be problematic. Whereas I feel like someone whose persona is more earnest and more caring, say, and as I said, I'm not even sure, this is just my impression of, you know, having sort of read about her, it might, people might be detecting a level of hypocrisy. Like, you know, if you really cared that much, you should be in that room crying about the homeless people. So like, in a way, and this gives a real pass to scumbag politicians who don't claim anything other than to be motivated by, you know, the jollies, like Boris Johnson, because they can get away with it. And you might say that someone like Donald Trump can get away with it because they're not claiming to be anything other than that. It's kind of baited. Whereas someone like Hillary Clinton, you might say, actually, it does feel a bit like you're sort of giving an image of...

Speaker D: 00:22:33

Your brand is sobriety.

Speaker B: 00:22:35

Is better, is sobriety, but also is slightly holier than now. Yeah. You know, and certainly presented herself a little bit with that calling, talking about the unmentionables and that kind of thing. It's like, I am slightly better than those other people. Whereas Donald Trump, I think, you know, for all his, whatever you might think of him, there is a kind of honesty about him, I think, you know, a kind of unrestrainedness, which means that it's very difficult to be hypocritical.

Speaker A: 00:23:03

Yeah, yeah. Before Chris comes in, it just makes me think of that point we made that time about those penguins getting rescued, you know, by the cameraman. I'm sick of these penguins. I know. But, you know, if the camera crew hadn't been there, well, you know, the penguins would have been stuck down there no matter what. And it just goes back to, I have no idea if it's relevant or not, but talking about what's private, what's public, whether someone's filming it or not. What's real. Yeah. I mean, presumably she's been to loads of parties and does all the time, but there's just not people with with mobile phone filming it there. And I don't know how relevant that is, but anyway. Well, it is relevant and we'll get to that in a sec.

Speaker D: 00:23:36

Chris. Yeah. I was just going to say, I think there are parallels here on the hypocrisy point and the fun point with politicians' private lives. And so, you know, one of the reasons there was so much Ferrari afterwards when it emerged that John Major had had an affair with Edwina Curry was that a central plank of Tory policy was about this idea of back to basics and, you know, sort of moral traditionalism. I think he'd left office by the time that came out, though. Yes, it had. Exactly. But if you look at Liz Truss, who became prime minister, you know, with it being on public record that she'd had an extramarital affair at some point in, you know, that didn't really feature in any way, shape or form. You know, her demise had nothing to do with that. If it had been Jeremy Corbyn she'd had the affair with, it could have been a different story. That would have been an interesting match. But yeah, and I think I feel like where we've gone with, this is quite an interesting phenomenon, where we've gone with the private lives of politicians, it would have been the case that an affair was a career ending thing in the up to the 80s, 90s maybe. Now it's definitely not.

Speaker A: 00:25:00

Yeah.

Speaker D: 00:25:02

But on the fun front, it feels like we have much, much tighter boundaries on what we expect of politics. You know, fun is it seems to have been levelled right down. Whereas if you look back at, you know, sort of Churchill and, you know, was famously a drunk, right, you know, and but but.

Speaker B: 00:25:24

And the Profumo affair and the revelations surrounding it about the lifestyles of the elite.

Speaker D: 00:25:30

Right. So so there was more latitude for fun, less less latitude for sin, I suppose. Whereas now I feel like we've gone the other way round, whereas. Seeing is okay. Yes. In terms of certainly in terms of personal relationships and so on. That's it.

Speaker C: 00:25:49

I wonder if that is because it's more documented. I wonder if that's because now with mobile, we can just we can film the private lives of politicians so we see them more so we can make more judgments about them. Whereas before they were just sort of like folklore or mythology or, you know, that we kind of maybe. You're never actually going to see. You're never going to see it.

Speaker D: 00:26:14

Yeah, right. And there's yeah, there are all these stories about prime ministers who were rarely in parliament, you know, spent a lot of time at, you know, checkers twiddling their thumbs or whatever. Downing bottles of port. Exactly. Yeah, no, I think I think that's right. I think we have unbelievable. We we essentially I think part of the issue is we expect a prime minister to be 24 seven on duty and it's a dereliction of duty when they're not, you know, reading through papers to do with with being promised. That's what we expect. And that seems to me to be the problem, a wholly unrealistic expectation. And like, do we really want people in charge who are doing nothing all day other than coming up with policy and running government? I mean, that sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

Speaker B: 00:27:04

Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah. And I round us off a bit. Well, I know it's really just a wider point about this, this, you know, that there really isn't very much unless you're locked in a room, e.g. the toilet. There really isn't much privacy anywhere now. You can't. There's no such thing as a private party. Everyone's got a mobile phone. You know, anything you do might be exposed. And what and I think the wider point there is if you think about, you know, this trend of sort of people having their pasts on social media and and what we expect, say, of a of a, you know, a job applicant or something, and you look on social media and discover that they've got all this, all this stuff that you probably did, probably curated. But well, yeah. But so in a way, like you just have to lower your expectations. And in a sense, it sort of exposed the fact that actually we're all probably more similar than than perhaps we thought we might have thought, well, I'm a bit of a party guy. But you know, the prime minister is really boring. No, it turns out prime ministers like to have fun like everyone else, you know, and all those people who had squeaky clean CVs, you know, 30 years ago. Well, now, you know, if they'd have had social media, we'd have we'd have seen all kinds of things on there. And I suppose I'm saying the standards, the standards, those expectations just have to fall. They can't not. We can't we we can't maintain a level of expectation about behavior that doesn't exist. You know, whereas we could we could 50 years ago, we could believe that, you know, Churchill was in in his office all day, you know, doing work, and no one was going to tell us otherwise. Now we can't believe that we can't fool ourselves.

Speaker A: 00:28:49

Yeah. Also, by the way, one of the great things about which Churchill has so many different hobbies. One of them, of course, is building brick walls. He really liked. Do you know this? No, no. He loves them. He loved doing a brick wall. And so there's pictures of him at what was the name of the checkers? Yeah, in the garden there. And you can see if you were to Google it, and there he is just building a little wall. But not an iron curtain. But not an iron curtain. No, indeed. So and that's before we even go to painting and writing and so on. Okay. So here's a question. Just thinking about prime ministers, which prime minister do you think in an age of social media had stuff been had the chance to be recorded? And shown? Do you think would have most interesting feed or the interesting backstory, the most revelatory, surprising stuff being dug out of their social media past? Maybe is someone who is in this age of social

Speaker C: 00:29:47

media? This British Prime Minister? Any kind of leader as you like? Australian, I would say Bob Hawke, probably. Oh, yeah. He was 80s. Yeah, yeah. He's, he's the one who put his hand around the

Speaker B: 00:30:02

Queen's waist, isn't he? Yeah, he touched the Queen. Yeah, yeah. And he was sort of an he was

Speaker C: 00:30:08

he was known to be Yeah, he'd like he was big into his drinking. And yeah, I think had social media been around, there would have been a lot of scandalous photographs and stories. But

Speaker B: 00:30:21

Australians like that, right? Yeah, like Australians really respect the larrikin.

Speaker C: 00:30:26

Yeah. And it comes back to that authenticity thing, I suppose, because people believe that that was actually what he was like, that it wasn't a performance that he was actually just doing. He just he was himself and then he became prime minister. And he just continued that. So that

Speaker A: 00:30:41

that hit quite well. Okay. Chris? I think I'm going to go for Thomas Jefferson. Okay.

Speaker D: 00:30:51

I think that he I think his political career would have been unsustainable for him had his, you know, sort of formative. I don't know much about him, if I'm honest. Well, it's I think more in the I mean, he was obviously a well known slave owner, you know, and I think that wouldn't go down well on social media. Well, quite. And I think I think all of all of his actual views would have been documented. That's that's the point. And so, you know, this figure who who is, you know, so central to to the American creation myth, I think you would have actually I mean, it's, you know, his views are known, but there would have been much more of them. And I think they would have been much more personal. And I think, yeah, it would have been impossible to hold him up as a figure of, you know, to be lauded in the way that he is in American history, if that had

Speaker A: 00:31:50

all been exposed. Sure. Okay. Yep. Just briefly. So for me, some who are definitely not who would have really boring social media. I think Clement Attlee probably didn't have much going on in his private life. So he's one. Theresa May famously bit boring, not much going on the most exciting

Speaker B: 00:32:12

thing she could come up with from her naughty behavior was running through a cornfield that

Speaker A: 00:32:17

didn't belong to her. Exactly. So that's a bit, you know, that's not gonna get many likes on on Facebook. Some leaders, I don't know much about him, FD Roosevelt. So I know that he had all sorts of, you know, fun and extramarital affairs. And also his probably wouldn't have been good. Winston Churchill, quite a backstory. And we obviously all think of being, you know, you know, Battle of Britain and so on, but incredible life. And I'm sure much of it just wouldn't look good on social media. But probably top of the of the pile has got to be King Edward

Speaker B: 00:32:50

the... Edward VII, which I've written down as my own. So you've just nicked that one after already

Speaker D: 00:32:56

doing about five others. It's Fraser's constant, constant thing is, right, I want you all to name just one. Yeah. Not allowed to name one number between one and five. Mine's one, two, three,

Speaker A: 00:33:07

four and five. Yeah. I mean, just famously. Well, look, debauched. And look, well, you go for it,

Speaker B: 00:33:14

Nick. Why? So, yeah. I mean, as specifically, I think, as the Prince of Wales. Yes. But although he is, his most famous quote is, and of course, he represents the Edwardian, this sort of vanished golden age, I think, of sort of between Victoria and World War One. Yeah. And so he symbolises this fantastic time, this sort of, you know, beginning of the century. But his most famous quote was, you know, after years of Victoria being officially in mourning and people having to be all serious and sombre, said, gentlemen, you may smoke at, you know, a public dinner, which symbolised that he was saying, well, let your hair down now, you know, it's time to have fun. But yes, when he when he was a younger man and frequented the brothels of Paris, he apparently had a special thing, a special sex chair. Yeah. Yeah. With like various footrests. I think I've seen it. I still can't work it out. Whoever the carpenter was, was a genius or or certainly an anatomist of renown. But yeah. So, I mean, as you say, you know, I think we're spared, I suppose, in one sense, but also deprived of thinking about those leaders of the past and perhaps gives us an unrealistic set of expectations. Because actually, you know, when you find out about the sex chair, you're inclined to say, well, you know, Theresa May running through a field doesn't seem so bad.

Speaker A: 00:34:35

Yeah. God, perish the thought of. Anyway, I don't want to go down that. Yeah. All right. Nice. Okay. We'll stop there. That was fun. Thank you, as always, for listening to the Cognitive Engineering podcast. I'm Fraser McGruer. We've been here with Nick Hare, Chris Wragg and Jordan Fermanis of Aleph Insights. Until next time. Goodbye.