OCTOBER 2016 Harkness Report THE NEWSLETTER OF THE HARKNESS FELLOWS ASSOCIATION

imon Stevens, the Chief Executive of NHS England, who The changing face Sis due to speak to the HFA on Monday Octobers 31st in London is a Harkness Fellow himself. of the NHS

He spent 18 months in New York in 1994- A profile of 95 with bases at the Columbia University School for Public Health and the City’s Simon Stevens, health department. He will not forget his time at the latter. It was there that he met his wife, Maggie, an American the Chief Executive public health specialist. The department was testing a new innovative therapy for of NHS England. homeless people and prisoners suffering from multi-drug resistant tuberculosis. It proved so successful that it was introduced into India by WHO to fight TB. Was he daunted at the prospect of becoming the head of the largest employer in Europe with some 1.4 million had won universal endorsement from the Some 44 areas have been identified where employees, a budget of £110 billion, and medical establishment, a wide array of this better collaboration is being explored. a service that was constantly scrutinised patient groups and the media. He then Under the 2012 Act, which established by the media, ministers and high powered spent a decade in the international private NHS England, his team are public officials lobby groups such as the BMA? Not at all. sector, with an American firm, United not civil servants, with more freedom to He could not have been better prepared. Health which provided services in the US, speak out, which he has seized. His well After picking up an Oxford degree and Europe, Brazil, India, China, Africa and the received five year forward plan in October an MBA from Strathclyde University, he set Middle East. 2014, left no doubt who was in charge. out in 1988 on an NHS graduate training From the start of becoming NHS chief on He has been open and forceful about scheme in the first week of which he April 1 2014, he made it clear that one of the current government’s squeeze on the worked as a porter in a Durham hospital. his first priorities would be to correct the service and its readiness to renege on He went on to become a frontline senior most damaging fault in the original NHS earlier agreements. Between 1948 and manager on multiple fronts: hospitals, structure: a GP service totally separate 2010 spending on the NHS averaged a mental health, community services, from hospitals leading to patients with 3.7% annual increase. Since 2010 it has primary care and health commissioning chronic conditions increasingly passed averaged 0.9%. in the North East, the South Coast and from pillar to post. The financial crisis He openly admits the new NHS will look London. From there he moved into the helped him take up this cause. The need different: “It is tempting to think in a heart of Whitehall, first as the principle for more collaboration between hospitals, country so concentrated that everything policy adviser to two successive Labour GPs, and social care became acute as should look the same everywhere. I do health secretaries (Dobson and Milburn) local councils, faced with up to 50 per not go along with the view that one size and was then poached by 10 Downing cent cuts to their budgets, were forced to fits all. I am happy with diversity because Street, which had admired his skills in the shut down a large number of care homes different starting points might need formulation of the NHS Plan 2000, which creating massive bed blocking in hospitals. different approaches.”

in 2011, but had produced the hard copy for Peter Maxwell Davies (pg 14 and 15), two WHAT’S INSIDE people where we only had a home address. visits by fellows to Eltham Palace (pg 16) and This is the last hard copy of the Harkness If you have an email address can you please Syon Park (pg 15), a report by Peter Jenkins Report you will receive. We’ve produced five send an email to Rachel Arnold at on the Iran nuclear deal (pg 10), and then of them in the last six years. We’ve enjoyed [email protected]. Overleaf Judy Hargadon the usual succession of lectures examining doing it, but we are ready to make way for reports on a new survey she has organised the refugee crisis, the media, the UK’s someone else. Coinciding with our views, the to update our records. Her survey form is problems with the EU, new challenges facing HFA committee had come to the conclusion enclosed with this report. democracies, and the difference between that the Report should be confined to We hope you will enjoy this last bumper issue. running the Tate and the Royal Opera house. being online. The printing and the post are It includes all the reguilar features: news on Malcolm Dean Editor and expensive. We’ve been online since we started fellows (pg 2 and 3), obituaries which include Veronica Plowden Assistant Editor 2016 SURVEY established an international network of Harkness news Fellows and Simon is currently working to Your help please for our 2016 survey establish a new think tank in Finland. www. We enclose with this latest Harkness Report centreforwelfarereform.org a request to send us your up to date contact Alison Gomme (HF1990-91) was information. It is over 15 years since our awarded a CBE last year after retiring database was updated so this is definitely over- from running the Isle of Man prison and due. And we have an extra reason for wanting probation service for 6 years, following her to be sure we can easily contact all Harkness Daniela Abravanel (HF 1977-8). career as a prison governor. Fellows – 2018 sees the Centenary of the Her book Secrets of the Hebrew Alphabet Aphra Green from New Zealand setting up of the Commonwealth Fund and we has been translated and published as an has recently returned from a three- would like to be able to engage with all former ebook. It can be found on Amazon. month Harkness Fellowship, under the Harkness Fellows as plans are developed to Adrian Beecroft (HF 1974-6) has Fulbright umbrella, in the USA where she celebrate this. For many of you we only have become a trustee of the MCC and of the was based in the US Federal Department of postal addresses, and yet we imagine that most National Science Museum Foundation. Justice. Her research compared evidence-to- Harkness Fellows will have an email address. Dr Diane Bell (HF 2010-11) is Director action criminal justice reform programmes The Harkness Fellowships Association plans to of Insight at Cobic Ltd. After her currently under way in the US, as well as catch up with the times – this report is the last undergraduate degree from the University having a particular focus on bail decision- one that will be printed and posted to you. In of Cambridge, Dr Bell completed her making tools there. New Zealand Harkness future there will be electronic newsletters. In medical training at Imperial College Fellowships are for emerging New Zealand addition to checking your contact information, Medical School in London, then specialised leaders in any field of study or vocation we have asked an additional question about in internal medicine and public health. (excluding health care policy and practice) your areas of interest. Harkness Fellows Her interests lie in the influences to study or research in the US for between have a wide range of careers and expertise that health care systems have on the eight and twelve weeks. as the follow on discussion at our regular practices of individual clinicians. Her Tom Hayhoe (HF1978-1980) is Chairman topical lectures attests. Knowing more about Harkness Fellowship was spent under the of West London Mental Health NHS Trust, Fellows’ areas of interest will help us tailor the mentorship of Prof Larry Casalino at Weill responsible for local mental health services programme. Please do let us know if you have Cornell Medical School, New York, and in Ealing, Hammersmith & Fulham, and suggestions of speakers or topics for future she has been a visiting Fellow at the Kings Hounslow, and for Broadmoor Hospital. gatherings. Fund health policy think tank in London. David Hoare (HF 1975-7) was appointed Living outside the UK? She has been director of strategy at Chair of Ofsted, Britain’s Schools Inspection Please still send us your information. We several payer organisations in the NHS and Agency, in September 2014. ( Office for know that you may only occasionally be able she led the planning, development and Standards in Education, Children’s Services to attend our talks or the Harkness Birthday implementation of some of the first large and Skills). dinner in London, but with the developments scale capitated outcomes-based contracts Dr Terry Kemple (HF 1992-3) is currently in communication technology there may in England. She has recently collaborated elected President of Royal College of be ways we can get the Harkness Family with Nicholas Hicks (HF1991-92) General Practitioners 2015-2017 together without being in the same room. The writing about the lessons beginning to Bridget Kendall (HF 1978-80) the BBC’s committee is looking at ways we can enhance emerge from English developments in diplomatic correspondent becomes the first our offer for Fellows living in other countries. value-based and ACO-like care which may female master of Peterhouse, Cambridge. In case you have mislaid the form, it can also have international relevance. Peterhouse - Cambridge University’s be found on our website Robert Cassen (HF 1959-61) has oldest college - has been admitting www.harknessfellows.org.uk then look for published Making a Difference in women only since 1985. Professor Dixon Survey 2016 on the left hand side. Education: What the evidence says with the outgoing master said: “Bridget will If all else fails, please just email Rachel on Sandra McNally and Anna Vignoles, bring to the college her exceptional skills [email protected] - that way we have your London: Routledge 2015. The book in communication and knowledge of email address and can follow up with other explores why the failings of Britain’s international affairs. She also provides an queries. Thank you in anticipation of your educational system have been so resistant outstanding role model for students and survey return. to change. It finds some success stories young academics alike.” The Harkness Fellows Association Committee but not nearly enough. Its remit is wide, David Lodge (HF 1964-65) The Join the Harkness Fellows Association looking at schooling from early years to paperback edition of his book, Quite A The Harkness Fellows Association is established age 16 and entry into further education Good Year To Be Born: a Memoir 1935- as a charity with an educational focus. The with a special focus on literacy, numeracy 1975 was published in January 2016 by aims of the association are to keep alive the and IT. Paying particular attention to Vintage Books. It contains an account of spirit of the programme and to encourage research findings which are strong enough his Harkness Fellowship year in the USA. trans-Atlantic contacts and relationships. To this to guide policy, the authors examine The hardback edition was published by end it runs a programme of lectures, seminars, teacher performance, school quality and Secker & Warburg in 2015. workshops and other activities and publishes accountability, and the problematically Helen Mason (HF 2014-15) Winning a a newsletter. In the past it has produced a film large social gap that still exists in state Harkness Fellowship to study for a year in about the programme, which you can view school education today. the US at Harvard University was a life- on our website by clicking on the Harkness Dr Simon Duffy (HF 1994-95) changing experience for New Zealand’s Video link. Members get discounted rates for established the Centre for Welfare Reform Bay of Plenty District Health Board chief our lectures and through their membership as an independent think tank in 2009, executive. As well as giving her the contribution are supporting activities to keep advocating a radical reform of the welfare opportunity to focus on research into the Harkness Family connected. state to advance citizenship and protect improving the quality of end-of-life care, If you are not member and would like to join social and economic rights. The Centre has she also held a parallel fellowship at the please visit our website, been a leading critic of the UK’s extreme Institute for Healthcare Improvement in www.harknessfellows.org.uk right-wing Government. The Centre has Boston, which gave her exposure to a

2 Harkness Report October 2016 challenges in the uptake of innovations and research evidence from low- and middle-income countries into the US. So-called Reverse Innovations may offer interesting opportunities to bend the cost curve in the US, providing equal or better outcomes at lower cost. The research I conducted during the year has led to several publications in peer-reviewed journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Globalization and Health, the Lancet, and the British Medical Journal. Before taking up the Harkness David Lodge Fellowship, I was an Academic Clinical Lecturer in Public Health but currently I am range of experiences outside health care, West London. He is hoping that the vision a Senior Policy Fellow in Public Health at such as spending time with astronaut will become reality and that the UK will the Institute of Global Health Innovation, Michael Fossum at Nasa, and with Harvard do something significant to combat the Imperial College London, led by Prof the Kennedy School of Government’s Marshall causes and effects of climate change. Lord Ara Darzi of Denham. Ganz, a key architect of President Barak Maddy Phipps-Taylor Obama’s winning campaign in 2008. Recently returned 2014 Fellows Breaking from a series of roles as a civil On her return, after a period as general Ted Adams servant and management consultant, I manager of innovation, she won a We returned in 2015 after spending embarked on my Harkness adventure to contested recruitment process and took up just under a year in California at Kaiser gain a different perspective on health the top job at the Bay’s biggest employer, Permanente. On our very first night system design. I joined the School of Public with responsibility for 3000 staff and a we experienced an earthquake! I’m an Health at University of California Berkeley budget of $706 million. Obstetrician and Gynaecologist, practising to research the formation of the new Karen Mumford (HF 1990-91) was in Liverpool. My passion is around making healthcare entities known as ‘Accountable awarded a CBE in the New Years Honours it easier for anyone to interact with our Care Organisations (ACOs)’. These new list for services to economics and labour health service and in doing so to make entities seek to improve health outcomes market diversity. the process as smooth and efficient as it and people’s experience of care while Neil Smith (HF 1966-68) has jointly can be. This desire to make it as easy for reducing costs - the holy grail of all health published with Nicholas Allott Chomsky: patients and families was brought home systems around the world. I learnt that Ideas and Ideals [third edition]. when my son needed treatment for cancer ACOs are changing the care services they Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, in the USA some 5 years ago. We were offer, building advanced digital analytics 2016. http://www.ucl.ac.uk/psychlangsci/ looked after like family and I wanted to and developing new organisational research/linguistics know whether I could bring a sense of this alliances to better serve their patients. To Stephen Potts (HF 1986 -87) Retired patient focus home. see positive results, ACOs are motivating from his role at the ‘front door’ of the California is a great place to live. I the doctors in their networks to do things Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh in March understand what the fuss is about now. It’s differently, not necessarily by paying them 2014. He returned almost immediately only the ability to truly immerse yourself differently, but by tapping into their drive to work with the kidney, liver and in US life that allows you to understand to become better doctors and see tangible pancreas transplant services there, in this. Visiting isn’t the same – yes you see improvements for their patients. a post-retirement role as the UK’s first the sights, but you don’t see American life. I took my husband, Matt, to California consultant in Transplant Psychiatry. The beauty of Yosemite and Lake Tahoe and we both fell in love with the climate, Partly in recognition of his earlier work versus the grinding state bureaucracies landscape and the lifestyle. We made with A&E and acute medical services for such as the Department of Motor Vehicles the most of the adventure by buying a the Scottish Government, he has been are majestic in their own ways when Mustang (called Sally), ticking off many awarded Fellowship of the Royal College you’re a “non-resident alien” and not just truly American experiences such as going of Physicians of Edinburgh. He continues a tourist. to the Rodeo, and exploring 22 States with his non-medical writing with three feature What did I learn? The relative political road trips and weekends away. film screenplays currently in funded stability of the US healthcare system Jacob West development., and several awards won at (despite its greatest upheaval since My fellowship was at Harvard School festivals in New York, Amsterdam, Monaco Medicare) is a strength compared to the of Public Health. I remain an advisor to and Toronto. He still lives in the Scottish political tinkering that goes on in the UK. the Harvard Global Health Institute. I am Borders with his young family, but after However, despite the presumed customer currently National lead for Primary and some decades his days on the water have focus of what is a medical service industry Acute Care Systems, part of the NHS’ New been curtailed after his beloved classic in the US, the NHS is safer and more Models of Care programme. Before taking yacht Greylag was wrecked off Argyll in convenient (we know as we had a baby up my Fellowship I was Director of Strategy 2011. out there) than quite of a lot of what at King’s College Hospital, one the largest Prof Richard Templer (HF 1986-88) is the US can offer. There are also fewer academic hospitals in the UK, where I led Sustainable Development Commissioner earthquakes in Liverpool! the takeover of two local hospitals and for London, pursuing a vision for London Matthew Harris helped establish a major integrated care to become a major centre for the I was based at New York University under programme. In 2014 I was seconded to City development of clean technologies. His the mentorship of Prof James Macinko Hall to help develop a plan for improving report was completed in March 2016 (UCLA, California) and Dr Don Goldmann London’s health care. Previously I had and received Mayoral support for the (Institute for Healthcare Improvement, gained a Master’s in Public Policy from the development of a Cleantech Cluster in Boston). My resarch project examined the University of California, Berkeley.

October 2016 Harkness Report 3 want to come clean with you at Sir Tom Richardson the start. I’m not a lawyer, and I’m Inot a human rights activist. But I was a diplomat, and I had an early exposure to refugee issues when I was ambassador in Rome in the nineties. Albanians and Kosovars trying to get into Italy, often in pitifully small boats, and also a lot of people who said they were Kurds and claimed refugee status but who turned out to come from all over the Arab world.

In passing this was an early example of two problems that still bedevil the whole immigration issue. One is how you prove someone’s identity if he or she shows up without any papers. The other is the basic distinction between refugees and economic migrants, to which I’ll return. But the numbers then were as nothing compared to the million and more that arrived last year. For Europe, you’d have THE to go back to 1945 to witness such mass movements. I say “for Europe” because the UNHCR recognises 20 million real refugees in the world today, not counting Palestinians who come under a separate REFUGEE authority, and also not counting the 40 million or so “internally displaced”, that is, people who’ve fled from one bit of their country to another – let’s say in Nigeria - but without crossing a border. Even without CRISIS counting the displaced, Europe’s current woes are only a fraction of the world’s lives. I suspect that in the early days of ten that has meant Italy or Greece, the woes, and many refugees today are hosted Schengen its promoters didn’t pay enough states with the longest and least policeable by some of the world’s poorest countries. attention to illegal immigration. They frontiers, and I’m still amazed that this basic I want to focus on the impact that these may have naively assumed that everyone defect wasn’t queried at the time. If then migrations are having on the Schengen would queue up obediently at a recognised after registration an asylum seeker moved Agreement to abolish Europe’s internal crossing, with the right papers, or that the to another Schengen country, he or she borders, one of the jewels in the European leakage wasn’t enough to justify expensive could be and often was deported back to Union’s crown along with the euro; border controls. It was an open secret in the country of entry – the so-called Dublin whether free movement in Schengenland Italy, way back in the eighties, that Filipinos transfers. But Dublin is now almost a dead will survive; and if there’s time what this could get into Italy from what was then letter. For years the Italians – who took might mean for the Union’s future. Yugoslavia with the help of a judicious blind the brunt of the first migrant wave across eye from local frontier police. the Med – turned a blind eye when their The Schengen Area Certainly no one thought hard enough immigrants, washed up in tiny islands like The Schengen Area now comprises 26 about how to control an external border Lampedusa, made it clear that they didn’t states, four of which – Norway, Iceland, when Greek islands were only a couple of want to stay in Italy but to go to places like Switzerland and tiny Liechtenstein – are not miles or so from the Turkish coast, Italian Germany. Many were not registered in Italy EU members. Six of the EU’s 28 states don’t islands not that far from Libya and Tunisia, as they should have been. belong to Schengen: the UK and Ireland and there was a land frontier that stretched have opt-outs, and Croatia, Romania, right across Europe. People were feeling The numbers escalate Bulgaria and Cyprus have not yet been pretty sunny and relaxed in the nineties. In 2014 283,000 migrants entered the admitted. The Convention provides for free The Berlin Wall had fallen, so had the European Union. Most came by sea, to movement between Schengen members entire Iron Curtain, physical barriers (save Italy and to a lesser extent Greece. Of the and for a common external border, that is in Cyprus and Belfast) were out of fashion, total, by far the largest contingent were to say controls on non-EU immigrants at and no one seems to have wondered how Syrians, some 80,000, but there was also the point of entry into Schengenland, be it to monitor a porous border thousands of a big influx from Afghanistan and from a land crossing, a seaport or an airport. If kilometres long. The Arab Spring hadn’t Eritrea, one of the world’s nastiest little a plane transports people who are refused happened. dictatorships. In 2015 at least a million entry into the Schengen area, its owners These geographical problems were migrants are reckoned to have arrived have to pay the return ticket and they pay compounded by the little-known Dublin in Europe, over three times the 2014 a fine too. So the airlines crack down, Agreements that flank Schengen. The figure and still accelerating. FRONTEX, the but the migrants have naturally turned to Dublin Agreements put the responsibility newish EU border protection agency, says people smugglers, the unscrupulous people for processing and fingerprinting an asylum 1.8 million, but a lot of migrants must who ferry refugees in small overcrowded claim onto the first Schengen state that have been double-counted when first boats across the Med, at a cost of so many the applicant entered. Nine times out of arriving in Greece and then re-entering

4 Harkness Report October 2016 Syrian and Iraqi refugees reach the Balkan countries are try-ons that stand no European Commission has twice tried to coastal waters of Lesbos in Greece, chance of being accepted. The Balkans are introduce a quota system. On paper it’s after having crossed from Turkey. not at war, not this time round anyway. the only way forward. It would clearly help Photo: Ggia/ Wiki Commons So how has the European Union Italy and Greece, and Angela Merkel, who responded? The short answer is, messily. is under rising pressure at home, would It is easy now to blame Angela Merkel for welcome it too. The first attempt in 2014 letting so many migrants into the heart of was technically voluntary but infuriated Europe last autumn, when she promised some eastern European countries by being to register them on the spot despite the forced through the European Council Dublin rules. But if she hadn’t, and other by majority vote. It has been a complete countries along the way had likewise failure. The Commission had planned to closed their frontiers, as they now have, relocate 160,000 applicants. As of February the outcome would have been a build-up only 414 had been moved. The new plan, in Greece not now but six months ago, to be tabled I believe later this month, is coinciding with the height of Greece’s for a mandatory migrant quota system, euro crisis. Maybe some migrants would scrapping the Dublin Regulations and have been deterred from setting out, but hence the first country of entry rule. I’d the chances are that most would have be surprised if it passed, and amazed if it gambled on somehow getting into Greece actually worked. and then into the rest of the EU. Of course But that leaves the Greeks in a desperate there are strong humanitarian arguments position. Already reeling from the euro for generosity. There are 500 million crisis, they fear they will become, in their Europeans, and a million new arrivals last Prime Minister’s words, the “graveyard of year mightn’t seem an insurmountable souls”, Europe’s dumping ground, unwilling burden when you think of all that Turkey host to 200,000 and more migrants who and Jordan are doing. There are also don’t want to be in the country. Over economic arguments for reversing the EU’s 100,000 have already reached the Greek aging population. But there is no political islands from Turkey in the first nine weeks will to do so. Germany, and Angela Merkel, of this year. There are thousands stuck at have lost ground. They got their way the Macedonian frontier, and summer, on the euro but haven’t on migration. It calmer seas and the next wave of migrants would have been unbelievable only a few will be here soon. months ago that Austria, once Germany’s The politicians seem to be edging towards closest ally, should have convoked a Balkan an overall settlement: beefing up, and the EU through Hungary. Nearly half the meeting on the issue without inviting harmonising external border controls, Mediterranean Sea arrivals in 2015 were either Germany or Greece. Germany let the allowing only Syrians and Iraqis into Syrian, followed by Afghans and Iraqis, and migrants in, and it is her neighbours who Schengenland, and with Turkey’s help 80% of them took the short sea crossings now aim to suck them out again. In the deporting as many as possible of those from Turkey to Greece. The civil war in last six months Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, judged to be simply economic migrants. Libya and the greater dangers of the sea France and Austria have all reintroduced The practical obstacles are enormous. At route to Italy have led to a slowdown in border controls of one sort or another. the external border you’d need to screen all African emigration, while the much lower Hungary, Croatia and Slovenia have also passports or IDs, not just those of migrants price that smugglers charge for arranging built fences along their southern borders, but also those of returning Schengen crossings from Turkey to the nearby Greek as Greece and Bulgaria had already done nationals given the wider terrorist concerns islands has encouraged a huge swell in along their border with Turkey. Sweden – that have arisen since the Paris bombings. Middle Eastern and Asian emigration. a humanitarian beacon – has said it will You would need to do this against police All such figures should be taken with reject half the 160,000 asylum applications records, including Interpol’s worldwide data a pinch of salt given double-counting, it received last year. Austria, in apparent base of stolen and lost passports, some 45 the swamping of frontier posts and the breach of the Geneva Convention, intends million of them; and you would have to confusion over registration. What is not to impose a daily cap of 80 new asylum report the results in real time to EURODAC, in doubt, whether genuinely motivated seekers, and plans to deport 50,000 the EU’s central data base. You would or not, is the number of applications for migrants over the next four years. With have to clarify the role of FRONTEX and asylum. In 2014 EU member states received Hungary and eight Balkan countries, Austria give it more powers to screen migrants. In 627,000 such applications: 20% from Syria, has also offered to help Macedonia, which 2013 and 2014 the EU only managed to and then Afghanistan, Kosovo, Eritrea isn’t even an EU member, build and police send back around 40% of rejected asylum and Serbia. Of these applicants 185,000 its own fence along the Greek border. With applicants. obtained protection status in the course of regional elections this weekend, there is Nor is it clear to me as I speak today the year. They became recognised refugees. growing pressure on Merkel to introduce whether complete free movement within The main beneficiaries, entirely reasonably, border controls of her own. the Schengen area can be restored. Many were Syrians, Eritreans and Afghans. As member states have invoked the Treaty to for 2015, a United Nations estimate puts Quota problems re-establish temporary border controls of the number of asylum applications at 1.2 Two key issues in any solution are whether up to 6 months. I believe the legal Treaty million, of which Syrians and Afghans or not to introduce a Schengen-wide quota maximum is 2 years, and there could be between them will account for nearly half. system for taking in the genuine refugees pressure to apply that on a Schengen- There has also been a big increase in Iraqi, to whom we have a legal obligation; wide basis. To the extent that deportations Albanian and Kosovar applications, and and the removal, forcibly if necessary, of begin in earnest and are seen to work, that this may be the moment to say that those economic migrants to whom we don’t. pressure might die down. from Albania and Kosovo and other non-EU Desperate to shore up Schengen, the Contd >

October 2016 Harkness Report 5 Sir Tom Richardson The Refugee Crisis

Contd from page 5 refugees, and by the perceived difficulties But I think borders will be more closely of integration, at least in the short term. monitored. Would that entail bringing back Unemployment is another major factor, static frontier posts and frontier police? I’d for example in France and Italy which, it have thought it unlikely. When you haven’t so happens, are not countries that the had border controls for a generation – say migrants themselves favour. Above all, between Belgium and France – it will be people are bemused. Almost no one can hard to replace the police you’ve lost and now remember a time when Europe was to recreate the old knowledge of the area. so swamped with refugees. We desperately But there‘s bound to be more collaboration need a period of stability while we deal between national police and intelligence with asylum applications and try to officers, and a lot of people will be queasy integrate those who qualify into society. on civil liberty grounds. There might be If that means cracking down on rejected some implications for trade and the internal applicants in a way that many may find market if vehicle checks were stepped up distasteful, I am afraid it is the price we Why do the British find at the national borders, leading to long have to pay. queues and higher transport costs. And what of Britain? Until a year or so ago, the debate in this country centred on issues An EU on the defensive that I haven’t even touched on: how to Beyond all this lie some big questions reduce legal migration, that is to say non- Europe so hard to take? about Europe’s future. What if anything EU citizens who enter this country legally, can the EU do to help bring about peace with a visa; and how to reduce immigration in the Middle East, or to help failed states from other European countries. The first ell before the EU referendum in Africa? The mood has shifted against issue will always be with us. The second in June, 2016, Sir Stephen Wall intervention and the EU seems very much issue will hang on the referendum’s Wprivate secretary to multiple on the defensive. Yet unless some way can outcome, but we all know that there are foreign secretaries, EU adviser to two be found to tackle these various crises at labour shortages in the UK that immigrants prime ministers (Major and Blair), source Europe will be exposed for years fill. On refugees, debate so far has centred former UK Permanent Representative to ahead to new flows of refugees. And what on what will happen at Calais if the UK the European Union (1995-2000) and an of our humanitarian credentials? The New were to vote to leave. Would the French official historian at the Cabinet Office York Times has criticised Europe’s lack of tear up the 2002 treaty and require UK with a remit to write the official history humanity throughout the crisis, but while immigration procedures to take place at of Britain’s relationship with the rest I admire its liberal attitudes it tends – as Dover and other UK ports rather than on of the European Union provided some many Americans do – to think of Europe French soil? Views are mixed, and we won’t succinct and surprising answers to the as a single entity, to disparage nationalism know till after the vote. More clear-cut, question we had posed. as outmoded, and to assume that Europe, I think, is the future of Dublin transfers like Canada, Australia and the US itself, is a if we left. I cannot imagine that Italy, for He didn’t go so far as Sir Humphrey Appleby, country or collection of countries founded example, would be willing to take back who in a famous ‘Yes Prime Minister’ TV on immigration. I myself believe that the migrants who had registered in Italy but programme, declared the UK’s Foreign majority of European citizens, including our found their way to Britain. And we have Office had spent 500 years seeking to create own, want to help the genuine refugees. used the transfer system more heavily than a Disunited Europe in order to divide and But fears have been stoked by terrorism, most countries. rule it. And having failed from the outside, by wider concerns about the huge The big picture is that over the years Britain we went inside where “we are free to make preponderance of young men among the has been generous to refugees. As recently a complete pig’s breakfast of the whole as a year ago we were in fourth place in the thing”. EU for successful asylum registrations. In But it didn’t start happily in Sir Stephen’s the present crisis we have played a relatively story either. When officials from the original minor role, but we have agreed to take in six nations met in Messina to map out 20,000 Syrians directly from the camps, an outline for the European Economic and I suspect will take more as time goes Community prior to the 1957 Treaty of on. We finance the camps around Syria Rome, which created it, the six sent seriously generously, albeit no doubt for a mixture of senior officials from their foreign offices reasons. If what I have said has any lesson while the UK opted for a junior official in the for us, it is that migrants are no respecters Department of Trade and Industry. of national boundaries, not even island Much earlier, while Churchill had spoken ones, and that we need to work with our in 1946 in support of post world war two European neighbours on data exchanges, moves to bring European nations closer police and intelligence collaboration, action together so that they could never again Families wait in long against smugglers and a host of other wreak such damage on each other, he didn’t lines for food in matters. Whether we stay in or leave, challenge the post war Labour Government Indomeni, Greece. migrants will still want to reach Britain. ‘s decision to turn down a 1951 invitation Photo: Heather Murdock Splendid isolation is not an option. to join European Coal and Steel Community,

6 Harkness Report October 2016 Photo: Dave Kellam/ Wiki Commons

Why do the British find Europe so hard to take?

the fore-runner to the EEC. Both France and yes vote. Brussels superstate. This was in response Germany were in favour of the UK being But Europe has been a toxic issue for the to the 1987 Single European Act, which a member but at the critical moment, the UK, not just because it has caused divisions abolished national vetoes in a host of receipt of the invitation, the Prime Minister, between the two main parties, but also areas, increased the legislative powers of Clement Attlee was in hospital, and Herbert deep division within the two. Were the the European parliament, and called on Morrison, who was acting Prime Minister, British people sold a false bill of goods in member states to create an “European refused it on the grounds that “the Durham 1975: a UK veto as well as parliamentary Union”. Thatcher’s famous response was : miners would never accept it”. sovereignty? Both Harold Wilson, the “No! No! No!” Labour leader and Ted Heath, the Tory But Thatcher was unable to stop the De Gaulle veto leader, thought they would run it. But so did the European march towards a political By the early 1960s with the UK economy Brandt, Schmidt, Pompidou and Giscard. union. She had been replaced by the time stuck in a rut while France and Germany her successor, John Major, signed the were clocking up a strong recovery, Harold Up Yours Delors Maastricht Treaty in 1992. This involved Macmillan, UK’s Tory Prime Minister, applied The divide between Britain and Brussels further transfers of powers to the new to join in 1961. The French president, grew wider in the 1980s when Jacques European Union, but Major achieved opt Charles de Gaulle was opposed and Delors became President of the outs from two crucial parts: monetary vetoed it in 1963 for multiple reasons. He Commission in 1985, a French socialist union and the social chapter. This still failed was concerned that the English language who served three terms as Commission to pacify the Eurosceptics in or outside his would take over from French as the EEC President between 1985 and 1995. Europe party, later labelled by David Cameron as official language; believed the UK was more was on a march towards political union. “swivel- eyed fruit cakes”. A third opt out interested in links with the US rather than Delors believed a ‘single market’ free was achieved in 1995 when both the UK Europe; and perhaps most important of all of barriers to free trade along with free and Ireland refused to join the Schengen saw the UK as a threat to his goal of using movement of capital and labour would pact, under which member states ended the EEC to amplify France’s voice in world revive European integration by spilling over controls on their internal borders allowing affairs. from the economic arena into the political free movements for EU citizens. As President Kennedy noted on the day of .This was widely seen as a necessity if What changed? Sir Stephen was speaking the veto, one cockerel on one dung hill was Europe was to compete with the US. a long time before the 2016 referendum, OK, two cockerels on one dung hill not OK. But not in Britain. The Sun tabloid was but he noted a huge negative shift of Ten years on from 1963, the UK along with vehemently opposed running a front page attitudes in the national press . What he Denmark and Ireland who like the UK had splash opposing greater integration under missed was the increased alienation among applied in 1963, were finally admitted. De the headline: ‘Up Yours Delors’. the public. Listing what was good: He Gaulle was no longer in office. Denmark Margaret Thatcher won her famous rebate ticked off enlargement; single world; no and Ireland had held referenda, which had on the UK’s EC contributions in 1984 on federal super state -- the EU does not run approved the move. The UK’s referendum the grounds that it was receiving far lower health, education, police, armed services, came after it had already entered in 1975. agricultural subsidies than other states, judicial system, or fiscal policy. What The move was supported by all three particularly France. Four years later she was wrong? He listed lack of leadership; main parties and most of the national delivered her uncompromising Bruges too diffuse; the democratic deficit; Euro press. Two thirds of voters were in favour. speech in which she claimed she had not crisis; and the feeling that the global Even Margaret Thatcher, as leader of the rolled back the frontiers of the British world has overtaken the need for regional Conservative opposition, campaigned for a state only to see them re-imposed by a organisation.

October 2016 Harkness Report 7 Richard Hooper’s speech at the annual Harkness dinner

oining the understandable, less appreciated in London BBC in 1963 of those years – a capital city far less awash Jas a general with media messages, three television trainee, but channels only in those pre-Channel 4, pre- with no clear satellite television, pre-Freeview days. THE vocational passion at that McLuhan was the first to talk of the time, I had my “global village” that was being created by first media lesson communications media – an extraordinarily from the editor of Radio Newsreel. I accurate prediction for 1968. The internet MEDIA: was preparing my first ever piece to today is a global communications system, broadcast for the programme, 6.30 to careless of territorial boundaries, creating 7.00 weekday nights. I cannot now McLuhan’s global village. remember the subject. He asked me to MASS go into the studio and read the script, ‘The medium is the message’ whilst he recorded it. I did. I came But McLuhan is best remembered for his out. He seized the script and told me cryptic, opaque words: “the medium is to go back into the studio and speak the message”. For me these five words it freely – without a script. Somewhat proved, unexpectedly, to be the source and OR taken aback, I did. We compared the driving force for my career-long interest in recordings. No contest. Writing for the media. I took them to mean that each reading is fundamentally different medium of communication has different from writing for speaking. Different characteristics specific to its architecture. media. This begins to be interesting, I Writing for reading is different from writing MAD? remember thinking. for speaking. My passion was aroused. In a recent interview the artist Grayson Perry of the next user to click on the mouse to Many years later I had the delight of talking talked of the “materiality of objects” – this watch a live streamed movie, are not zero. with that most distinguished of Harkness is the same. The materials you use, the There are additional costs per new user Fellows – Alistair Cook. He was speaking at media you use affect what you are trying in relation to bandwidth and to website the memorial service for Charles Siepmann, to say – for Grayson Perry his tapestries server capacity. I well remember a Royal one of my Harkness mentors in 1967, and vases. Television Society conference at Cambridge based at NYU. Charles was Director of the some ten years ago predicting the early Spoken Word at the BBC in the 1930s and Writing for reading death of television and its replacement left the UK for the USA in 1939 probably by IPTV – Internet Protocol Television. due to his German name. I asked Alistair is fundamentally Well those Crystal Palace economics will Cook whether he in any way ad libbed his keep traditional television and radio in Letter from America, it always sounded so different from writing business for a while to come. Especially if fresh and organic with long sentences and broadcasters understand and exploit the parentheses which we radio newbies had for speaking unique characteristics of their medium – for been taught to avoid. He replied: “Every You may say that that each example big live events that exploit zero word in Letter from America is in the script, communications medium having different marginal costs, attracting large audiences. no ad libbing. I speak the script out loud characteristics is obvious. But in fact it into my typewriter as I type.” Writing for is not obvious – and it certainly was not A second key characteristic. Traditional speaking. obvious to me in 1968. The 1960s and television and radio are one way – the 1970s allowed me, armed with McLuhan Crystal Palace transmitter gives us no This early rather fumbling interest in insights, a close up look at the different ability to communicate back. The crucial differences between media brings me characteristics of the mass media. characteristic of the internet is that it is two to the Harkness. I was fortunate. I was way, carried on the modern broadband introduced to a Jesuit priest Father John The first key characteristic of mass media telephone network. Broadband speeds Culkin who turned out to be the John the such as television is economic. The Crystal are measured for downstream traffic – the Baptist for Marshall McLuhan, the great Palace transmitter to the south of us large amount of stuff I call down from the Canadian thinker and media philosopher across the river, emitting broadcast signals, internet and upstream traffic – the smaller in the late 1960s at the height of his costs the same to operate whether one amounts of stuff such as a new email which considerable powers. I sadly never met television set or one radio set is tuned in or I send back to and through the internet. McLuhan but devoured his books and sat at millions of sets are tuned in. The marginal In the late 1970s working for Clive Hollick the feet of John the Baptist. Surrounded in costs of transmission per new additional in the private sector, and then the early cities like New York or Chicago with endless user are zero. This economic fact should 1980s inside BT, I helped pioneer the first advertising, outdoor, radio, television, be at the heart of any understanding of version of the internet - viewdata/Prestel. newspapers, endless media messages mass media’s power and ubiquity and 24 lines of 40 characters in seven colours from by British standards huge numbers commercial importance. Let us fast on the television set fed by big computers of television and radio stations, McLuhan forward to the arrival of the mass-mad over the phone line. Prestel’s downstream was instantly understandable. He was less medium of the internet. The marginal costs speed was 1200 kilobits per second and

8 Harkness Report October 2016 Marshall McLuhan was the first to talk of the “global village” that was being created by communications media – an extraordinarily accurate prediction for 1968. Photo: Wikicommons the upstream speed was 75 kilobits per years, more and more fixed broadcasting we should read, listen to and think about second. Laughable today. But that was the is likely to transfer to the internet, freeing today. I would wish to argue to you speed of the narrowband copper-based up spectrum for mobile phone operators that the traditional mass media from the public telephone service. Today modern who need more and more of it each year. analogue age are much better at allowing broadband speeds, depending upon Last year in the UK data use on mobile us to browse than the internet is today in packet switching not circuit switching, networks grew by a massive 65% over the digital age. Size of screen is one issue. are measured in megabits per second and 2014. Worldwide there are 7 billion mobile The double page spread of a broadsheet even gigabits per second. Packet switching phone subscriptions, a penetration rate of newspaper beats a mobile screen any is another extraordinary invention – the 97%, up from a penetration rate of around day – for browsing but not of course for twin of the internet, born in America in 10% in 2000. All this needs more and more information retrieval. Browsing is rather 1967 in the womb of American military spectrum. We shall end up with mobile like high explosive ammunition in tanks. defence. Messages are cut up into small operators providing our phone service and If it lands near the target, it still works. It pieces – packets – with addresses on fixed optic fibre under the ground providing does not have to be pinpoint accurate like the front of each packet. Those packets our internet. The fixed phone, circuit armour piercing, like information retrieval. are sent separately through the network switching, the red telephone boxes and not necessarily in the right order not copper will all be gone. BBC’s i-player necessarily with the same routeing, and Now a step change is happening in are reassembled in the right order at the But let me look at the characteristics of television consumption. The BBC’s i-player receiving end. This makes for a highly media from another point of view – how is leading that change. The vast majority cost effective use of network capacity. we consume media. Most of the time we of viewing is still live, still has a browsing Unlike traditional circuit switching where are in one of two modes. Information component. But we are beginning to my telephone call from London to Sydney retrieval or browsing. seek out and watch only the things we requires an open line dedicated solely to want to watch when we have the time – me all the way through different exchanges Google and the internet are very information retrieval if you like video style. across those twelve thousand miles. powerful at information retrieval. Beating We are beginning to watch more and encyclopaedias and yellow pages into more stuff on demand, using streaming The rise of the mobile commercial decline. I know I was on the technologies like the i-player. Streaming is But there is one other important Yellow Pages board. But how do you know the internet’s answer to broadcasting. This characteristic of broadcasting which on the internet that the answer is accurate? move to on demand is even truer of the increasingly complicates the policy debate. I will come back to that. younger generation than our generation. Broadcasting uses spectrum, that is to say We are no longer all watching the same wireless frequencies through the air. Yet When we open the newspaper in the programme together at the same time, as a television and radio are essentially fixed – morning or switch on Radio Four, we community. That might be a cause the tv set sits fixed in the living room. But have no specific questions in mind. We for regret. they still use valuable wireless spectrum. want to browse. We want to say to the Mobile phones are mobile. They absolutely editor of the Financial Times or the editor need spectrum. So over the next few of The Today Programme – tell us what Contd>

October 2016 Harkness Report 9 Richard Hooper Peter Jenkins The Media – Mass or Mad?

Contd from page 9 The State carries out surveillance in order to identify a small group of dangerous Inexorably, I believe, we are moving away people amongst the wider populace. But from the traditional mass media world, the internet tech companies carry out How characterised by browsing, one way, “surveillance” on all of us, the wider passive, fixed in time and space, and populace, in order to find out about our moving towards a very different world browsing histories and likes/dislikes - in which is much more information retrieval, order to monetise us. Most of the internet much more individualised in character – is free to be paid for by advertising – just the Iran family members watching different stuff like ITV or Channel 4. Privacy as we used on different screens in different parts to know it is a relic of the past. Act on the of the house not sitting together in the assumption that nothing today is hidden living room in front of the telly. A more from view or will stay hidden from view. nuclear fragmented world, very mobile, two way, not fixed in time and space. Less mass and So the world of media is going from more mad perhaps. traditionally mass to potentially mad. But it is the speed of change that is so evident. But this new world, created by the internet We are living through Joseph Schumpeter’s deal was using the digital language of 0s and 1s, “creative destruction” and at speed. should not be embraced uncritically. There Back to 1963, BBC Radio Newsreel. I are many things about this new world remember at an editorial meeting which need open debate not uncritical suggesting a news item. It was turned embrace. We may need difficult domestic down because “it is not in the newspapers achieved and international legislation and regulation today”. Before World War 2 the BBC which will be much to the alarm of the was not allowed to broadcast news until digital enthusiasts. My internet right or the evening so as not to compete with wrong. As we all know, cyber attacks come newspapers. That staid hierarchical media from North Korea and Russia not just from world is gone for ever. The great strength hen I wrote for the the schoolboy in his bedroom next door. of the internet is that it is not a small elite Newsletter, in April 2012, talking one-way to the huddled masses. Wabout the perception that But this new world, Instead of one to many we have many Iran’s nuclear programme was a threat to many, thanks to digital. The digital to the nuclear non-proliferation regime, created by the world is more transparent, less elitist, I explained why it was rational to more competitive. News is global and hope that a diplomatic process internet using the ubiquitous. So the internet, itself global launched in Istanbul that month would and ubiquitous, loves news. But some bear fruit eventually. I warned, though, digital language of 0s old verities never change. The technology that the process might founder on may change but certain issues will not. mistrust, misunderstanding and and 1s, should not be Obscurantism. Let me therefore end on a political opposition in Tehran and wonderful quote from the great American Washington DC. embraced uncritically. newsman Dan Rather: Well, a nuclear agreement with Iran finally Let me return to the issue of accuracy “…news organisations and teams within emerged in July 2015. It has since survived already mentioned, The Content Board of those organisations have to have the guts some fierce opposition in the US, where Ofcom (which I chaired ten years ago) has and the backbone to dig into stories that many still detest Iran’s Islamic governing a statutory duty to regulate on radio and people in power don’t want the public class; and it entered into force, endorsed by television accuracy & impartiality, fairness to know. If you take the attitude that the the UN Security Council, on 16 January. & privacy, harm & offence. Can that be public needs to know what somebody in The parties to the agreement are Iran, the imposed on the global internet – most power doesn’t want them to know, that’s US, the UK, France, Germany (the three EU unlikely. So we look for trusted brands, news. Most of the rest of what passes for member states that attempted to solve the ft.com for example. But then there is news is propaganda or advertising.” problem between 2003 and 2005), Russia phishing spelt p h i s h – when you get (The Guardian, Monday 31 August 2015, and China. an email from a brand that is counterfeit page 30) The catalyst proved to be the election of and you unknowingly give up data to Hassan Rouhani to the presidency of Iran fraudsters. There is the even darker side The digital world, for all its dark side, in June 2013 and his decision to make of the internet – 40% of searches going helps Dan Rather’s concern rather than Mohammad Javad Zarif foreign minister after pornography. Cyber terrorism. Cyber hinders him. and chief nuclear negotiator. bullying of the worst sort – hugely assisted Zarif had been Iran’s ambassador to the by the digital liking for and acceptance of UN ten years before and had led for Iran anonymity. Then there are all the complex Richard Hooper (HF 1967-8) covered in the negotiations with the UK, France issues about big data, surveillance and 35,000 miles through 31 states in 21 and Germany that nearly produced an privacy. There are two types of surveillance. months on his fellowship. agreement in 2005.. He came to his new

10 Harkness Report October 2016 Peter Jenkins

The agreement is unlikely to usher in friendlier relations between the US and Iran. Iran’s Supreme Leader still sees the US How as an enemy of Iran and wants to preserve Iranian society from American values. The conventional (but inaccurate) view in Washington is that Iran is the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism, and that the Iran Iran is not entitled to develop and possess ballistic missiles.

New Tehran - Washington channels However, the agreement has opened up nuclear channels between Tehran and Washington. These can and perhaps will be used to test the Rouhani government’s assurance that Iran is intent on playing a stabilising deal was role in the Middle East. Iran is on good terms with the governments of Syria, Iraq, President and Afghanistan. Iran and the US have Rouhani has a common interest in restoring peace to been received Syria, and countering Sunni extremism achieved warmly in Paris across the region. and Rome. By contrast Europe and Iran are eager to Photo: exploit the resolution of nuclear concerns Wikicommons to rekindle friendly relations. President Rouhani has been received warmly in Paris assignment with a clear view of how the • Most UN, and EU sanctions have been and Rome. European Ministers have flocked problem could be solved, and enjoying the lifted and some US sanctions suspended. to Tehran. Export credit agencies have confidence of both Iran’s Supreme Leader resumed cover. Even the British government and key American contacts from his New The restrictions on Iran’s civil nuclear has re-opened the British embassy in Tehran York days. activities will lapse in 2031. At that point and has been encouraging trade missions The process also benefitted from a change, Iran’s leaders will be free to expand to Iran. in early 2013, at the top of the US State the programme – but only for peaceful Major European banks, however, are Department. Diplomacy comes more purposes. Iran will still be bound by the still holding back. Bitter experience has naturally to John Kerry than to Hilary NPT. Its nuclear facilities will still be subject taught them to beware of the pitfalls of Rodham Clinton. And Kerry proved more to frequent international inspections. US sanctions legislation. The US Treasury resistant to Israeli lobbying for terms of The agreement has not resolved one has already amassed $200 billion from agreement that Iranian negotiators would question: Were the US and EU right to the prosecution of US entities and foreign have to reject. believe, when the controversy erupted in entities with US business interests for sanctions-related offences. Congress is The Deal The catalyst proved currently awash with proposals for creating The agreement, which runs, including five sanctions to punish Iran for sponsoring annexes, to over one hundred pages, can to be the election of “terrorism”, abusing human rights and be boiled down to a few essentials: testing ballistic missiles. Hassan Rouhani to It is from the US that the greatest threats • Iran has reaffirmed its commitment, as to the survival of the nuclear agreement is a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation the presidency of Iran likely to come. A new Congress in 2017, for Treaty (NPT), to refrain from manufacturing instance, and a new President may combine or acquiring nuclear weapons; in June 2013 to renege on the deal. Much then would • Iran has volunteered restrictions on its civil depend on Europe. If EU member states nuclear programme; these reduce to zero 2003, that Iran’s leaders were planning continued to honour their commitments, so the potential for Iran to use its civil nuclear to acquire nuclear weapons? An IAEA too, in all probability, would Iran. facilities to produce a nuclear weapon investigation, now closed, into allegations quickly; that Iran engaged in nuclear weapon- Peter Jenkins (HF 1971-73) was a diplomat • Iran has offered unprecedented access to related research between the mid-80s and for 33 years during which he served as its nuclear facilities to International Atomic 2003 proved inconclusive. The probability British Ambassador to the International Energy Agency inspectors for verifying the is that during those years the Iranian Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) set up to absence of weapon-related work; intention was to create options but to promote peaceful use of nuclear energy • The US and its allies have acknowledged refrain from engaging in anything that and inhibit its military use. A main focus that Iran is entitled to make peaceful use of would amount to a breach of Iran’s nuclear of his time there (2001 to 2006) was the nuclear technology; non-proliferation obligation. Iranian nuclear controversy.

October 2016 Harkness Report 11 Bronwen Maddox Can democracies solve their own problems?

ew people billion spent in the first 18 months in the them – “Why do they hate us?” The EU, could be UK alone was how little bank behaviour in a more worldly way, was susceptible Fbetter changed with respect to pay bonuses, to its own myths, “while rightly crediting qualified than their failure to recognise their culpability the move from fascism, military regimes, Bronwen in the financial crisis, or acceptance of ignored how much Greece, Italy, Spain, Maddox to how ‘socially useless’, to use the words of had not changed, nor had Bulgaria and answer the their chief regulator, Adair Turner, many Romania”. question posed of their activities were. What made these above. As a expenditures, particularly in the UK look The optimistic story former editorial writer on the Financial more pernicious, was the way these bank Undeterred Bronwen remained optimistic Times, Chief Foreign Commentator subsidies coincided with massive squeezes about the degree to which democracies on the Times, and Editor of Prospect on the poor through crude cuts to benefits can solve their own problems. She went for the last five years, she has spent and tax credits. on:”Politics and economics are tough but many years monitoring the state of Internationally, the age of big deals, such as we are working through these problems democracy in the world. happened post second world war – the UN, with speed, resilience and innovation. If you IMF and World Bank -- was disappearing. look at science, technology and business She was well aware of the string of events Kissinger’s ‘world order’ was frayed and we are in an extraordinary fertile period of that have made the question all too the US view no longer prevailed. Mass change. We are living through a revolution relevant. One by one she picked them off, migration was challenging international which the world envies and from which it the economic, political and international accord. Binary divisions in the US were benefits.” developments that have raised such doubts. choking up the federal system and could Looking at microeconomic answers First there were the three ‘Ds’ – debt, even spread to Germany. she conceded there were long running deficits and demography. Neither debt Finally there were wider doubts about old intractable problems, not restricted nor deficits were new problems, but ideals of liberal democracy. In the US there to the UK , involving education, skills, demography certainly was. The growth was a tendency to think others must share infrastructure and housing. But she pointed in older people was generating serious to Charles Goodhart’s articles in Prospect, challenges for health, social care services Neither debt nor deficits which suggestedtrends could push up and state pensions. Eventually there would wages and push down inequality, because have to be a bonfire of previous promises were new problems, but the proportion of the population that was and a re-writing of existing social contracts. working was falling so making labour more It was going to be enormously unpopular demography certainly was in demand . “People were finding ways to reinforcing widespread public mistrust of work longer, slowly. Hugely unpopular to say traditional political parties on the Left and so, but this is going to be the future. More Right of many western developed states. work, property will pay for pensions and There already was much for populists healthcare shortfalls. Death of inheritance.” to feed on: the freeze on wages going The rise in growth in the UK and US was back 20 years; the fall in growth; add in partly, as Ben Bernanke, economist and two serious international wars, a deeply chair of the board of governors of the US unpopular one (Iraq) that was lost and Federal Reserve System, had noted, was cost over £10 billion, generating 134,000 the effect of the quantitative expansion, civilian deaths and over 5,000 military the biggest economic experiment. Belated ones. The second, a much longer war in reforms on banking had imposed stricter Afghanistan further demonstrated the tight capital holdings and curbs on risky lending. limits on outside intervention achieving Internationally the Paris agreement on change in states without the basic structure global warming had shown coalitions of of government. This was further eroded by the willing were still possible. The nuclear the failure of the ‘Arab Spring’ agreement with Iran reached in July 2015 Lehman had been endorsed by the UN Security Reckless banks and a squeezed poor Brothers Council in January 2016. (See Peter Jenkins The list did not stop there. There was the Headquarters article) A technological revolution could in New York on financial meltdown in the autumn of 2008 help healthcare and continue lengthening Bankruptcy Day generated by the reckless investments of 15 September lifespans. Current projections suggest one big banks in toxic assets and the billions of 2008 in three children born in developed states pounds that had to be spent to save them Photo: Robert Scoble in 2012 could live to one hundred years. from bankruptcy. Over and above the £850 Democracies were entering a new age.

12 Harkness Report October 2016 hich would you think is the most daunting job: Deputy WDirector at the Tate or Chief Executive of the Royal Opera House? Alex Beard, who has held both posts, suggested to Management Today that it was the Opera House: “This is a very ‘peopley’ job. This means that many THE things can go wrong, which gives it a singular daily frisson. Thething that can happen to the Tate is that some CHALLENGE pictures might get nicked. Which they did once when we lost two Turners at an exhibition in Germany. We got them back eventually but it took 10 years.” OF ART But in an illuminating address to Harkness Fellows before that magazine article was published, he put the see-saw down on the AND OPERA other side:”In some ways the ROH is less daunting than the Tate. If there was a fire been opera. He was taken to the Upper of the Met’s: 50% at or below £50; 40% at at the Tate and the Turners go up in smoke, Slips by his mother at the age of 11 and £40 or less, special offers for students. Marshall McLuhan was the they could not be restored. If there was a became a board member of Glyndebourne The company was lucky in having a theatre first to talk of the “global fire at the Garden, we could return within Opera in 2008. So he was not unfamiliar in the centre of the city to attract tourists. village” that was being 10 months.” with the challenge when he reached It had another large building in Thurrock, created by communications Beard has served seven years at the Arts Covent Garden five years later. near to the Thames Gateway, where all the media – an extraordinarily Council of England (1986-93), 19 years at He told us: “I am not a polymath. I’m a sets are built and most of the costumes accurate prediction for 1968. the Tate (1994-2013), and had chalked up magpie. I once plucked a cello, try to use designed andPhoto: created. Wikicommons three at the Opera House when he spoke my bike to get to work, and am a member Beard was unequivocal that even with to us. of a cricket club. I do not set targets but do reduced public subsidies the company still He made his name at the Tate, where its set a direction of travel. You need a steely had an accountability to its audiences. This director Nick Serota, asked him to assess nerve and a vigilant eye on finance. My ranged from improving conditions within three possible London sites to expand the principle job is to look out for people with the theatre , organising more lectures institution. He chose the most intimidating, skills. One aim is to create a new work in on forthcoming events, and widening the Bankside Power station on the Thames. every season.” outreach programmes to local schools. On This was accepted and Beard given the He said he loved the job: “Day after day the latter he noted “We should do our bit responsibility for supervising the project. we get 300 people to do something which to help ensure every child has access to our The Tate went from an organisation of 330 is almost impossible: 100 below the stage culture.” He is in talks with the Women’s people where 85% of the finance came (orchestra), 100 on the stage and 50 Institute with respect to encouraging more from the government to 1,000 employees backstage.” group visits. Some of this was already where the government provided only 32% underway in the years before he became of the costs. But what Tate Modern did Widening as well as increasing CEO. It now includes workshops in schools, provide was a huge increase in visitors. audiences formal apprenticeships in backstage Some five million in its first year. He thought the organisation was in a work and set building; community and reasonable state but there were serious participatory projects that led to 30,000 An american fund raising road challenges ahead. The New York Met has people attending performances along with It was at the Tate that Beard recognised been the first opera house to broadcast 20,000 more through targeted schemes the era of generous public subsidies to its programmes in the 1930s and the first for families, students and isolated older the arts was coming to an end. Together to use cinemas to widen its audience. The people. with Serota he took to the American road ROH had followed suit with cinemas in He went out of his way to express of fund raising concentrating on wealthy the last decade. Last year 740,000 people admiration for the talent in the ballet philanthropic donors and corporates. Beard attended theatre performances, another corp, noting two exceptional dancers openly admits he is fond of fund-raising 740,000 watched the operas and ballets with ‘muscular skeletons’ and an ability to and has won a reputation as one of the in 478 UK cinemas, and further thousands dance like ‘liquid mercury’. The company is cleverest and most persuasive of fundraisers in cinemas of 48 overseas cinemas. Last in touch with China, through its embassy, in the field. He has even advised the year Covent Garden performances achieved to act as an advisory body for the 32 new Department of Culture, Media and Sport an occupanacy of 96%, an attendance ballet companies being created there. on the potential that philanthropy offers. rate only exceeded by the Vienna Opera Finally on finance he recognised the This skill must have been a big factor in House. It involved 41 shows delivering 500 growing number of older people in society winning his Royal Opera job when Tony Hall performances, the most intensely used would require more funding from health, announced he was leaving in early 2013 to theatre in Europe. social care and pension departments. run the BBC. Before Hall the Opera House Audiences had widened as well as His fund-raising skills are being heavily had been in turmoil losing five directors in increased. Cinemas were offered six operas engaged on three to four nights a week five years. Beard inherited a much more and six ballets a year. The theatre was not with potential donors in excellent seats and stable institution. just open for the rich – 50% of audiences dining between acts. It is not helping his Ironically although best known for his role earned less than £40,000 and 40% were waist line, but in his words ‘public funding at the Tate, Beard’s first love had always under 35. Theatre prices were half the rate is so last century.

October 2016 Harkness Report 13 registered instruments.’ everybody’s path, such as the latest novel, De Voto added: “Max had made exhibition or (God forbid) pop song, held occasional trips back to Europe for no interest for him.” It could have added performances of his compositions, but not just television but also electricity, Obituaries he stuck around until Spring 1964, which was absent from his early homes in inspiring us all with his productivity and the Orkneys. Peter Maxwell Davies (HF 1962-64) commentating on our compositional The obituary pages in both the UK and efforts, especially brightening the Geoffrey Wilson (HF 1960-62) US newspapers were cleared for lengthy dusky classrooms of Clio Hall with his Geoffrey Wilson a celebrated reformer and laudatory tributes to Sir Peter Maxwell irrepressible charm and gentle humour.” of the traditional English approach to Davies who died aged 81 on March 14, the training of lawyers died aged 85 on 2016 from leukaemia. An early paragraph The genius of the man 18 October, 2015, having suffered ill in the Daily Telegraph tribute was echoed A tribute in the Sunday Times magazine health for some years following a stroke in some of the others: “Although by Paul Driver noted: “He was the purest in 2010. The two years that Geoffrey ranked among the world’s most eminent embodiment of genius I’ve met. He came spent in America on his fellowship at Yale contemporary composers, Davies’s music into my life when I was about 15 and an and Berkeley universities played a crucial remained within a distinctly British idiom, aspiring composer. I discovered his scores part in opening his eyes to other more succeeding the close-worked tradition in Manchester’s Henry Watson Music imaginative ways of teaching law than in of Elgar, Tippett and Britten. Yet there Library, then an archive of his manuscripts, England. was often a Scottish hue to his work: in bound volumes sitting behind glass, in the He had had a glittering time at Cambridge 1970 he had fallen in love with Hoy in the smaller, more local Swinton Library. This where he achieved the highest exam Orkneys, where the sea and the landscape was surely remarkable for the composer results in each of the four years of his had a profound effect on his music.” wasn’t even 40.” law course. On graduation in 1953 he Others noted he was later to move to an Born into a modest household in Salford was elected to a research fellowship at even more remote Orkney island, Sanday. – his father was a foreman of an optical Queens College, which was followed The New York Times quoted an interview instruments factory – he showed an by a full fellowship and university Max had given to the UK’s Sunday Times amazing aptitude for music at an early lectureship in 1955. Yet in spite of these describing how as a child he had heard age. The Guardian suggested: “In some academic successes, like a number of his uncle, in argument with his parents, ways he was the archetypal self-made contemporaries he remained a severe critic declaring ‘Surely you aren’t going to let boy from the North, in the same mould of the English legal education system. He that lad of yours do music when I can as Richard Hoggart, with an unswerving is said to have described it as too narrow, offer him a brick laying apprenticeship?’ loyalty to high culture. But unlike the rule-bound, insular and unrealistic. He But they did, he was their only child and effusive Hoggart, Maxwell Davies was once interpreted the phrase ‘English legal had gained a scholarship to go to the a sphinx. He showed exactly the same scholarshp’ as ‘a disposable plastic cup’. Royal Manchester College of Music, now mild old-fashioned courtesy to everyone, His big breakthrough came when he was known as the Royal Northern College of whether it was the director of a prestigious invited by Warwick University in 1967 Music. festival, or the director’s PA who brought to create a law department for the new the coffee. If there were fires underneath, university. There were no students there on Max’s time at Princeton they were visible only to intimates. The his appointment giving him three years to There was an endearing account of Max’s contrast with his contemporary Harrison set up a radically different law school. His behaviour on his Harkness Fellowship at Birtwistle, who quite enjoys being publicly colleague, William Twining, who became Princeton by Mark De Voto, an American brusque and dismissive, was striking.’ the second professor in the school in musicologist and composer, who had been He and Birtwistle, another HF (1966-68, 1972, described in a Guardian obituary the a Princeton student at the same time. were part of what became known as ‘the three key ingredients of the new school: Writing in the Boston Musical Intelliger, a Manchester school’, who shared a passion real life social and political problems rather virtual journal and classic music blog on for anything off the curriculum, from than formal rules; freeing legal studies March 15 De Voto recalled: ‘My classmates classical Indian music or medievel and from insularity by emphasising foreign, always wondered why he wanted to join renaissance music to Arnold Schoenberg, EC and international law; and insisting us – unless as a third year wryly said, he Anton Webern and Igor Stravinsky right up that the discipline of the school’s courses came to learn how to stop composing. to the latest European avant-gardists. offered distinctive lenses for understanding Nevertheless he had joined in seminars society. and complimented me on my presentation Max the atheist monk Twining went on: “His most striking and on musical instruments, but expressed The Guardian added: “Through his important departure came from Warwick’s exasperation the next week, saying he staggering productivity as a composer, his original curriculum, which emphasised could not understand how a group of a visibility as a conductor, and as someone international law and included subjects not dozen students could spend three hours with a high profile who was always willing normally studied by legal undergraduates: trying to make a schenker graph of the to sign petitions for good causes, he housing, planning, company, labour, first 8 bars of the slow movement of seemed in one sense to be ubiquitous. taxation, family, welfare and consumer Beethoven’s Opus 109. Yet, in another he was a remote and law. When challenged about the changes ‘Max asked me what I would recommend elusive figure, his monk-like austerity Wilson replied ‘How can one understand for bell sounds that would be practical and seriousness out of place in our era a capitalist society without studying labour in a theatre, he was then well advanced of conspicuous superfluity. He sought law and company law’.” On top of this writing his Opera Taverner, about the great out only things that would fortify his he recruited a lively team of like-minded Tudor composer’s trial for heresy.’ De Voto inner world – the architecture of Filippo younger colleagues from several countries had recommended that he experimented Brunelleschi or the writings of St Thomas all set on exploring innovative new with spiral coils of steel wire like those Aquinas —were two favourite sources approaches to teaching law. Confident used in 19th century American striking though he fearlessly criticised religion. of the new ethos he had initiated, he clocks, but in the end he chose higher While those things that simply cross assigned each new recruit with a particular

14 Harkness Report October 2016 course and told them to get on with it.

Lessons from other systems Twining reported that Geoffrey’s original curriculum was inevitably diluted, particularly in the name of student choice and new options, but Warwick Law School still has a sense of identity thanks largely to the collegiality and intellectual excitement that he inspired. There were, of course, disagreements and academic battles, but they were mainly fought within the Warwick tradition. Over time the Warwick way – broadly NEWS & EVENTS known as ‘law in context’ – became embedded in the mainstream. The VISIT TO SYON PARK abbey remains now except possibly a wall University noted in a tribute of its own, SUMMER EVENT 11TH JUNE 2016 at the back. In 1578 Henry Percy, ninth Earl another way in which Geoffrey broke the first visited Syon House in 1965 to write of Northumberland was granted a lease of mould was by recognising the important up the history of Syon Park for an ‘A’ the Estate, and so began the residence of changes Germany’s new approach to level history project on the Dissolution the Percy family at Syon, continuing, with teaching and practising law was making. of the Monasteries. The entry price various twists and turns, up to the present. This became an integral part of the Iin those days was 2/6d for adults and one The house we visit now offers perhaps the university’s main syllabus. A number of shilling for children under 15. Thanks to HF finest decorative scheme of Robert Adam in other modules emerged from the study of Robert Morley our guided tour this time the country, undertaken between 1762 and other foreign legal systems. was almost as reasonably priced, as was 1769. Our guide explained to us how current Geoffrey retired from the chairmanship of a perfect lunch in the Marco Pierre White family members have managed the house the law school in 1973, but remained a restaurant at the adjacent Hilton Hotel and grounds in such a way as to enable the professor until his retirement in 1997. which concluded our visit. site to be profitable and the beautiful Adam interiors to be kept in an excellent state Richard Smith (HF 1959-61) Our visit was unusual for a number of of repair. Richard Smith CBE OBE has died in reasons. We were the only group in the Patchogue NY aged 84. A British painter great house which was very special, and Highlights of our visit included the whose idiosyncratic explorations of form our guide was the gardener. Whether magnificent Adam Great Hall graced by and color embraced both Pop Art and he was the head gardener we were not the two stunning sculptures of the Apollo Color Field painting, he was one of the told, but he had worked for the dukes of Belvedere and the Dying Gaul at each end. most distinctive, indefinable artists of the Northumberland for sixteen years and he The floor of the Ante Room appears strikingly 1960s and ’70s. Born in Hertfordshire in knew a great deal about both house and modern, constructed of such soft polished 1931, Smith studied at the Luton School garden and was a charming and friendly scagliola (a composite of marble, fixing of Art before serving two years in the guide. He pointed out to us that the material and colouring matter) that stiletto Royal Air Force in Hong Kong. After his view from the Long Gallery was unique heels leave marks. As we processed through tour in the military he studied at the Royal in that we could see, divided by the River the beautiful Red Drawing Room with its fine College of Art from 1954-57. His Harkness Thames, two entirely separate Capability portraits and medallion-decorated ceiling to Fellowship (1959-61) allowed him to Brown landscapes. After Capability Brown the Long Gallery our guide explained that spend two years in New York, awash with had fashioned the gardens at Syon, the as the gentlemen remained carousing in luridly colored advertising displays and neighbouring owner at Kew looked across the dining room, the ladies moved through technicolor magazines, where he became the river and said, “I’d like one of those.” the Red Drawing Room to the Long Gallery a pioneer of the Pop Art movement, And so George III ordered Capability Brown where they took their exercise, unable to creating large-scale paintings inspired by to model the gardens of the palace at Kew hear the wild behaviour of the men. Our Manhattan’s commercial billboards. Later on those at Syon, so the story goes. guide invited us to rest on the sofas of the Smith’s influential use of shaped canvasses Green Drawing Room, still used by the family sometimes physically extended into space Syon Abbey was the only Bridgettine house from time to time, and from there we were and referred to devices used in advertising. in England in the 15th century and the taken upstairs to the Oak Passage, and many His 1975 retrospective at the Tate was Order was unusual in that it accommodated interesting family and royal portraits, down structured round his seven most influential communities of men and women living again to the Great Conservatory, one of the shows. In an article for Time magazine, entirely separately to follow their lives finest garden buildings of its era. We hear the critic Robert Hughes said of Smith’s of prayer and study. It was the tenth that there are many yards of piping under paintings, “Their color was everything that richest house in the country and attracted the stone flags, but the oil-fired heating is color in English art was not: exotic looking, recruits from the highest circles of society. far too expensive to run, so the plants that artificial, and rich.” After resettling in According to our guide, in those times remain in the greenhouse have to be able New York in 1976, Smith’s ‘kites’ evolved the building was “monstrous,” extremely to survive temperatures falling to minus into larger-scale architectural decoration, large, with many storeys and exceeding 10 and rising to 40 degrees centigrade. often in response to commissions. Smith’s the current footprint of the house greatly, Immediately following our departure from stock as an artist had risen and fallen although little is known about this building. the conservatory, 260 chairs would be set dramatically through the years. In 2000 After the Abbey’s suppression by Henry out, and tables laid for a wedding feast The Guardian called him “the Invisible VIII, in 1539 it fell into Crown hands and there, providing a glorious place for nuptial Man.” That might have hurt, if he had not we heard that Catherine Howard was celebrations – and a steady income for the adopted, early on, a philosophical position allocated two rooms there before her estate. on the art-world lottery. execution in 1542. Little of the original Judy Digney

October 2016 Harkness Report 15 calls, the house-hoover with piping running NEWS & EVENTS throughout the house with skirting sockets to which the hoover in each room could be VISIT TO ELTHAM PALACE attached. This amazing contraption, with 7 JUNE 2015 the filter, motor and collecting tank in the basement, used occasionally to blow back “Stephen says why can’t you both stay into the room covering the maids with soot, the night here? We have a very good hair and goodness only knows what sort of dormitory down below (and some detritus. We see the ‘ensuite’ basins and spare beds) where we always sleep so baths in each room, now looking more like even if Gerry is louder than usual, or those in a seedy b&b, but then very grand, our guns are, we can still sleep.” in that each supplied cold and hot water to each bedroom. From the Entrance Hall So wrote Ginie Courtauld to George we move through a short corridor straight Courtauld, the cousin of her husband, to the enormous hall with its elaborate oak Stephen, in January 1941. She was hammerbeam roof and underfloor heating inviting him to bed down in the bunker in marquetry panels, and on the floor is installed by the Courtaulds. the cellars beneath her lavish new home a magnificent circular Dorn carpet (the in Eltham where the family took refuge original being in the V&A). The style is not It is curious that, having spent eye- during the worst of the air raids. Its unlike that of a highly luxurious ocean liner. watering sums on the lavish interiors relatively spartan interior with eau de nil and stunning gardens of Eltham Palace, painted walls, rickety camp beds, wireless We move from room to room with our Stephen and Ginie spent barely eleven and billiard table, contrasts dramatically audio guides programmed to address us years here. But after the war London with the luxurious, ultra modern ‘art as guests at one of the Courtaulds’ jazzy society changed irrevocably and lack of deco’ design of the rest of the house. parties, with cocktails at 6, dinner at 8 and servants meant that it was difficult to run The house, medieval hall and extensive dancing afterwards in the Great Hall. We the house. In 1944 they settled in Scotland moated gardens are surprisingly close to are invited to imagine Stephen Courtauld to live on Stephen’s 24,000 acre estate on central London, situated as they are in a offering us a martini in the Entrance Hall the shore of Loch Etive. They moved to a leafy corner of gritty Eltham in SE London. and escorting us to the splendid dining new house they built on land purchased The family’s fears were not misplaced. room. We see the library and a map by Stephen in Southern Rhodesia (now In September 1940 during the Battle of room currently being conserved by English Zimbabwe) in 1951. From 1945 to 1992 Britain, over 100 incendiary bombs fell on Heritage, serving to show how travel was Eltham became home to various Army the estate. such an integral part of the Courtaulds’ education units (who must have been lives. We are also introduced to Mah unable to believe their luck) when the Stephen and Virginia Courtauld began Jong, Ginie’s pet lemur who has his own Ministry of Works took it over. English their refurbishment of Eltham Palace specially designed cage, almost the size Heritage assumed responsibility in 1984. during the 1930s when they took a of a bedroom, with a ladder giving access 99-year lease on Eltham Palace from to the outside. We see the magnificent Twelve of us, including Lizzie and Theo, the Crown and commissioned architects onyx-lined bathroom and gold-tapped bath were blessed with a glorious day for our Seeley and Paget to build a house for them with golden tessera’ed niche and sculpture visit to Eltham Palace. Our group lunched adjoining the dilapidated historic medieval of Psyche and the temple-like bedroom pleasantly in the renovated greenhouses Great Hall, then used as a barn. They were designed for Ginie, with separate dressing in the brand new visitor centre, and those looking for a semi-rural property within room. We note the high-tec gismos the that had time returned to wander through easy reach of London. Today the building, Courtaulds introduced, the new pay the moated garden, while the rest of us administered by English Heritage, provides phone with A and B buttons for the use returned to our cars to ponder over the life fascinating insights into what this wealthy of guests, interestingly noting that guests and times of this extraordinary couple. and eccentric couple got up to in the were expected to pay for their telephone Judy Digney period just before the war. Not only this, it is thanks to the Courtaulds’ restoration that we are still able to see the magnificent medieval Great Hall, initially part of a FORTHCOMING EVENTS moated manor house, built by the Bishop The dates for confirmed events are: 29th November of Durham in the 1290s, when otherwise it would have mouldered away and been Harkness Fellows Returners’ Event, lost. 31st October hosted by The Health Foundation, Harkness Annual Lecture, HF Simon The Health Foundation, 90 Long Acre, The house has many high points, but Stevens, Chief Executive of NHS London WC2E 9RA, 5.30 for 6pm perhaps the most interesting is the England, “Can we afford the NHS?” This is a free event architectural solution to the problem of Garden Room, Athenaeum Club, Pall how to connect the house to the Great Mall, 6.30 for 7pm January 2017 Hall. Architects Seely and Paget solved Cost for members is £20, and the Harkness Birthday Dinner, guest this problem by constructing the house as cost for the first guest is £23, but speaker HF Bamber Gascoigne, venue the other leg of a ‘V’ shape adjoining the if Fellows wish to bring additional and date tbc hall and then building the fine Entrance guests we are anxious to make the Hall at the fulcrum of the V so that, although triangular, it appears as a circular Annual Lecture widely accessible so RSVP to Rachel Arnold room. Designed by the Swedish artist, for second and further guests the [email protected] Jerk Werkmäster, the walls are lined with charge will be only £15. 020 7380 6704 Australian blackbean veneer incorporating

Harkness Fellows Association c/o The ACU Woburn House, 20-24 Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9HF tel: 020 7380 6704, fax: 7387 2665 email: [email protected] website: www.harknessfellows.org.uk

16 Harkness Report October 2016 Newsletter design and layout by Mike Krage www.kragedesign.co.uk