The Director's Chair: David Lammy on the UK's foreign policy, Europe, China, AUKUS, the Windies and 'Big Ange'

In this episode of The Director’s Chair, the Lowy Institute’s Executive Director Michael Fullilove is joined by UK Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy.

They discuss David Lammy’s journey from cathedral chorister to the House of Commons, what kind of prime minister Keir Starmer would make, foreign policy under a Labour government, the UK’s relationship with Europe, China and the United States, how he was influenced by the revered West Indies cricket team of the 1970s, and how Australian manager Ange Postecoglou has reinvigorated his beloved Tottenham Hotspur.

Host: Michael Fullilove 
Producers: Josh Goding and Andrew Griffits 
Research: David Vallance

Past Director's Chair episodes here.

Michael Fullilove

Hello, Michael Fullilove here in London. In this episode of The Director's Chair, I'm talking to the British Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy about his life and his views on the world. 

David Lammy

Well look let’s be clear the special relationship goes behind whoever’s in the White House or in Number 10. It’s a special relationship predicated on a history. A history of which Australia has been an important part.

Michael Fullilove

Welcome to The Director's Chair a Lowy Institute podcast. My name is Michael Fullilove and I'm the Executive Director of the Lowy Institute. On The Director's Chair I sit down with political leaders, policymakers, and commentators in order to understand what's happening in the world. Today, I'm in London to interview David Lammy, who may well be the UK’s next foreign secretary. 

The UK has been through a difficult few years from Brexit to COVID, the death of the Queen and a period of prime ministerial turnover that would make an Australian blush. But Britain remains an important international player, a top 10 international economy, a permanent member of the UN Security Council and a nuclear weapons power. Its Foreign Service and armed forces are highly regarded, and we've seen over the past two years how the UK has led the charge to support Ukraine against Russia's brutal invasion. The Conservative Party has been in power in the UK for 14 years, but we're on the cusp of a general election, which the Labour Party is heavily favored to win, especially after the recent local election results. So, it's important for us to assess what a Labour foreign policy would look like to talk about this subject as well as his life and his views of the world.

I'm delighted to be joined by the shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy. Mr. Lammy was elected to Parliament in 2000. As the MP for Tottenham, he served in a number of portfolios in the Blair and Brown governments and in opposition. And in 2021, he was appointed shadow Foreign Secretary. David, welcome to The Director's Chair.

David Lammy

Thank you so much. Great to be here. 

Michael Fullilove 
David, as you know, on this podcast we like to talk about policy and global issues. But we also want to understand what makes policymakers tick. So, I want to take you back to the beginning. You were born in London to parents who had emigrated to the UK from Guyana. Tell us a bit about your childhood and your upbringing.

David Lammy

Well, we describe that generation, my parents, who came here after the Second World War as the Windrush generation after the ship that docked at Tilbury in 1948. And my father came in 1956. My mother came a little bit later at the end of the 60s. But I grew up very much in a working class environment in Tottenham, in North London. And in those days, and this is now the 1970s, early 80s, Tottenham was made up of what we would call West Indian, African Caribbean families. Many, many Irish fan. I grew up with a lot of Irish friends. Our fathers had something in common, they used to like to drink in the pub basically. And then there was sort of what we would call white cockney families. And that was the community in which I grew up. It was quite parochial, you know. I didn't really leave the N 17 postcode of London. It was a big deal to go to South London. I remember the first time I went on an inner city train to… it was to Peterborough, where I eventually ended up going to school. So, it was a… very sort of…1970s, everyone was wearing green and brown. And Britain was, you know, people might recall of a certain generation, we had the winter of discontent at the end of the 70s. It was a time of lots of turbulence because of the, you know, the unions and other things. So, Britain felt a little bit depressed. But I wasn't aware of all of that. I just was living a very small working class life as an immigrant. And still that business of finding your place, you know, an immigrant family… are you really British? And in those days, we had also the National Front and the far right, really challenging conceptions of what it meant to be British in those days.

Michael Fullilove

And as you became politically conscious, I know you came to admire some of these great civil rights leaders like Dr. King and Nelson Mandela. I think you had their posters up on the wall. So that might have been a bit unusual. And then 17. Probably most of your friends had pop stars or football stars. But you started to become interested in political figures and civil rights figures. I remember myself as a high school student, staying up all night in Australia to watch that incredible live footage of Mandela being released from prison. So, tell us about that, about what drew you to those figures? What sort of a difference it made to your life?

David Lemmy

Well, you know, as you sort of evoked Nelson Mandela walking out of prison, almost my eyes welled up in tears because I'd stayed up and I watched that moment and it was a huge moment. Why was it so important to me? Well, I got this big break. I left the community I was from in Tottenham and I became a cathedral chorister. I went to a boarding school in Peterborough. It was an all white environment. It was a largely a right wing environment, not a not a left wing environment, which was very much Tottenham the community that I'd come from. And my father left our family at that time as well. He went to the United States, never saw him again. And he just left us and so I guess one of the reasons I focused on Mandela, Martin Luther King, these black male, huge figures was because they sort of became a proxy, father figure. I did meet Mandela, you know, many years later as a young MP, and I remember just shaking. Tony Blair introduced me to him, and I was just, you know, I was just shaking, I couldn't barely talk.

Michael Fullilove

I have to interrupt and say I had the honour of shaking Mandela's hand once in my 20s. And I had the same experience. I really had that feeling that people often say when you say I'd never want to wash this hand again. 

David Lammy

Yes, yes. 

Michael Fullilove

And he had just a grace about him didn’t he? And just a stillness, in the center of everything going on around him.

David Lammy

Absolutely. He had this sort of beatific glow to him and presence. He was also very funny, very charming. So look, I focused on Mandela, I focused on Martin Luther King, I got into civil rights. I think it was the juxtaposition of being the only black kid at this pretty grand school in the British East Anglin shires. And I think also, this was started to be the 1980s. So, the 1980s is a… you know, Margaret Thatcher is running the United Kingdom, you know, defiant, strong, neoliberal in her objectives. Ronald Reagan is in the United States. We have problems in inner cities, we've got riots going on in Britain. Of course, when you look out into the world, you start to see the rapprochement in terms of the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Berlin Wall, Mandela comes out of prison. You know, today, or this week, it's 30 years since the Rwanda genocide. So, I suppose what I'm saying is this was also a very, very political age. And some of the things that needed to be settled by the end of the 20th century were coming to bear. What do I mean by that? Well, I mean, that if you think back… we’re in the 21st century, think back to the 20th century, the rights agenda, you know, women having rights, black and minorities, having rights, working class people, you know, the Labour Party, you know, coming to the fore. But also that sense in which there were vast parts of the world, the Soviet Union principle within that, where there was just this Iron Wall, and a very different vision of life. And of course, I also remember, growing up, you must remember this Michael, in an era where we were terrified of nuclear war films. There were these films, a film called Threads. You just sort of you watch them, and you were just sort of terrified because the Cold War was real.

Michael Fullilove

Red Dawn.

David Lammy

Red Dawn. Just really, really scared by it all. So that my coming of age. Basically, it's into that world that I was born. And of course, then in terms of a political maturity and an arrival, it was in that amazing period that I think summed up by… let's pick three people. Paul Keating, Bill Clinton, and Tony Blair. And that's obviously the era into which I became a politician. 

Michael Fullilove 

All right, so let's go to that. You became a Labour Party activist. You were elected to Parliament in 2000. I think at that time you were the youngest member of the House of Commons. You so you served in parliament for nearly a quarter of a century. What do you like about politics? What do you dislike about politics?

David Lammy

Oh, I've had a very, very fulfilled political career and I've loved being a part… I love the idea that you're… it's like drinking from a hose pipe if you're an adrenaline junkie. And I love doing the job where every day is different. I went out with some paramedics… spent a day with some paramedics a few years ago, and they have a job every day is different. It's just, you know, it's an adrenaline rush. And I love that about it. But I guess, in the end, you know, my principal motivation is very simple. It's to help people. I think it's driven by a very powerful sense of my youth and my background is to help folk like me to be a voice for those sorts of folk. And, I just love what I do. 25 years in, I'm always staggered at how different the world is today. I don't think any of us would have predicted we'd be quite where we are. And of course, I've lived through a period, social media being really a big part of this, where politics has changed a bit. And we, you know… the energy is people are a lot less civil to one another. I worry about mental health issues, I think which have grown or feel like they've grown. And I think also, let's be clear, I've lived through a period where I'm still surprised at the huge inequalities that exist in many of our societies. Between those who seem to have quite a lot, and those who really have so very, very little. 

Michael Fullilove

You mentioned, these three center-left political figures, including my boss when I was a young man, Paul Keating. Let me focus in on Tony Blair. Coming to your position at the moment on the foreign policy side of things, how do you assess Tony Blair's foreign policy legacy? And what kind of foreign policy Prime Minister do you think Kier Starmer would be? 

David Lammy

Well, look. I think that when I think back to the Blair period, and I was a young minister, it was just such a different age. Tony was an interventionist. I think, the intervention in Sierra Leone, the intervention in Bosnia, and the Balkans. Clearly were hugely important in terms of foreign policy at that time, prevented less death than we might have had, had he not been so bold. And also trying to create a coalition of countries to really get to the aid of those people but clearly also, there's the intervention in Iraq, alongside George Bush, that's been well commentated on. I don't need to need to say much more. But obviously, that begins a period. But maybe it's actually unfair to say it begins because it does also begin with the invasion of Kuwait a few years earlier that sets up some of the challenges that we're seeing still in the Middle East today. But Tony was an interventionist. I think he was… he had a vision of the world. And what was possible… what seemed possible I think, in the wake of the end of apartheid, the end of the Cold War. But the challenges of autocracies and things that we still saw, in areas like the Gulf. It was a high point in democracy and values and the spread of those values that I think today we recognise, you know. Democracies on the retreat, you know, 71% of the world are living in countries where there's no free press. And of course, America is not the only superpower. China is alongside it. India is a very important emerging superpower. You know, it's interesting. When I think back to 1997 and the Blair years. People forget the British economy was bigger than China and India's combined. And we still have a colony called Hong Kong. So we're living in a very different place. 

Michael Fullilove 

Those were the days. All right, what about Starmer? What kind of foreign policy PM do you think he'd be?

David Lammy

I think Keir was a realist. I think that Kier Starmer… if you want to sort of get a feel for Kier Starmer I think you'd have to go back to Clement Attlee. And Clement Attlee and Ernest Bevin, his foreign secretary, were picking up the mantle after the Second World War amongst the rubble of the Second World War. And really getting to grips with where we were. Now, this is a huge… there are lots of things going on at this time. One, the Labour Party births NATO, and recognises the need to keep together the coalition built in the second world war between the United States and Europe principally. Two the Labour Party commits the country to the nuclear deterrent. Anyone who's watched Oppenheimer in the last year or so, will recognize the importance of a construction that is the nuclear deterrant. And the Labour Party, despite lots of different Vex fights within the Labour Party was central within that. And of course, the other period that, that period marks is the end of empire. As in so many countries, India, you know, much of what would become the Caribbean starts to… African colony… start to become independent. So, this was a time of tremendous change. And it was a realist period. And I think that Kier is… would be coming into office during an incredibly challenging geopolitical environment. Challenge because we've got war in Europe, with Ukraine and a systemic issue with Putin. And where he places Russia. We have these now emerging middle powers, countries like Turkey, Saudi Arabia. Talked about India, Brazil, very powerful in their own regions. And, of course, this real… the hegemony of the United States, rivalled by China and a very different perception of the world and then huge challenges in the Middle East. So this is a period where what I set out and what I know care believes in is a progressive realism. We’re progressive, because unlike the conservatives, we aren't going to be sending folk to Rwanda. Half a billion pounds for very little return. And we do believe in the rule of law. We're not going to be pulling out of the European Convention on Human Rights. And actually, this is a period where Britain has felt rather insular and unengaged in the world, our aid budget has been cut. Those are the sorts of things that I mean that, of course, were progressive, but we're pretty realist. We see the world as it is not as we would wish it to be. And I think that Kier Starmer represents that, that very strong tradition. He's also like a former Director of Public Prosecutions. Expect him to be pretty tough on defence, expect him to be pretty tough on Home Affairs, domestically, crime type issues.

Michael Fullilove 

You wrote a very interesting essay in foreign affairs that I recommend to listeners where you you make this argument about progressive realism and you refer to Ernest Bevin and so on, and just today, you've associated yourself with Labour's history on collective security and the nuclear deterrent as well as decolonisation. Let me ask you, what would be the most important thing that you would like to achieve as foreign secretary?

David Lemmy
Well, I don't think there's… there's not just one thing, there are a few things. Let me just say that progressive realism is a strategic compass. It takes the well principally as it is, not as we wish it to be. It's realist means for progressive ends. And so what does that mean in practice? Well in Europe, it means a European security pact. We have war in Europe. We have successive American presidents, challenging Europeans on burden sharing across NATO. And what we are proposing to the European Union is a very, very serious pact unshakeable commitment, of course, to NATO. But to work together on the big challenges of our age. Macron is proposing a sort of deeper Lancaster agreement. That's the agreement we have with France, on defence procurement, but also on climate, energy, new technologies, AI, there's a lot we can do with Europe. So a European security pact I think is very important. A clean power alliance you know, Britain has left the top table on the climate emergency. We want to be part of almost a reverse OPEC of developed and developing nations committed to leading the way on decarbonising their power systems. And of course, with tremendous problems in the Middle East. We are absolutely saying that you have to be prepared to work with partners like Saudi Arabia, UAE, others, Qatar. Your values may not be entirely aligned, but we will shake the hands of those partners in order to deliver peace or broker peace in the Middle East.

Michael Fullilove 

You set out a lot of issues and I want to come to a number of them. On Europe, you talked about a new security pact with Europe. But let me just ask you, from an Australian perspective, sitting on the other side of the world, isn't the right answer for the UK, ultimately, to set back on the path of rejoining Europe? I mean, in a world of giants, including the US and China, and Russia, doesn't it make sense for a country of your size to be part of a much larger political market and political entity?

David Lemmy

Well look, we are European. And we certainly will not have the emnity that the Conservative government has had with Europe. You know, it's extraordinary. Rishi Sunak has been in office now 18 months beyond, and he's only just made it to Berlin! Last week! Liz Truss was calling Macron an enemy under her leadership. So when all of that will change, we want Structured Dialogue with Europe, we want this security pact, we want to review the trade agreement that we've got with them. But look, let me put it like this. Australians will recognise that, in the run up to Brexit and following the Brexit decision, we had the most horrendous divorce, it went on for years, it was rancorous. And frankly, we only just sorted out the custody of the children with Windsor agreement 18 months ago. 

Michael Fullilove 

Too soon to go out to dinner again.

David Lemmy

Well, we do need to go out to dinner again. And I think that, that can happen with the… if we have the privilege of serving. But I think marriage is not on the table. We've got to get back to trust, we’ve got to build that trust. And as I say, we've got good propositions to rebuild that. We got to turn the page. Of course, we're in Europe, and war has reminded us of that, and NATO, I think is central to that, as well. But let's recognise there are other challenges. The Indo Pacific is one, and this is a world in which AUKUS is very important. Actually, us joining the TCPPP is very important. Also, actually, ASEAN partner status will be important, particularly because the United States has not been as keen on the trade alliances in the region. So for all of those reasons, you know, we are in a world in which we're looking in a number of directions at the same time. 

Michael Fullilove 

Just before we leave Europe. As I mentioned at the beginning, Britain has been at the forefront of providing international support for Europe. And Rishi Sunak, just a couple of weeks ago announced a new 500 million pound aid package for Ukraine and also pledged to increase UK defence spending to 2.5% of GDP. Will labour be as strong as the Tories on Ukraine in particular, but on defence in general?

David Lemmy

We’ll be stronger. Now, look, we haven't made Ukraine and defence partisan issues. We've been absolutely solid on Ukraine right from the get go. And we support the government in their desire to see Ukraine win and support Ukraine. However, why do I say we'd be stronger? Because we raised some very serious issues around the dirty Russian money flooding through London. It’s like a sort of dirty laundry mat really, with all sorts of oligarchs and crooks pushing their money through. We had a very sensitive intelligence report about Russian influence. All of the recommendations have not been implemented under this government. There are issues with some of that money finding its way into the coffers of the Conservative Party, let's be honest. And so we would be much stronger on kleptocracy than the government is and on those issues. We also think that we've got to get round to repurposing Russian assets to use on the rebuilding of Ukraine when that day comes, and the government have been a bit slow in that direction. We have an important sanctions regime, but we're poor on sanctions enforcement. We want to look at that more closely when we come to office. And on the issue of defence spending, we were absolutely clear that we want to see defence raise to 2.5% of GDP as soon as the fiscal climate allows. We're going to have a Strategic Defence review begin on day one in office to determine that. Let us be clear under this government, our armed forces have been reduced to the smallest sizes since the Napoleonic era. Our soldiers have not got the right kit, they've not got the right housing. There's been a lot of concern about where veterans find themselves. So we will be stronger in this area than the government have been.

Michael Fullilove

You mentioned the war in the Middle East. Obviously, Hamas’ attack on Israel on October the seventh was the deadliest days for Jews since the Holocaust. Fighting since then has claimed tens of thousands of lives. Labour is committed to a two state solution. But how do you think the parties will get there? How do you respond to those critics who say there's not enough… there's neither leadership, nor trust, nor interest on either side to move towards that goal of, to secure states living side by side?

David Lemmy

Well, the starting point is, we have been absolutely clear that we have to push back hard on this suggestion coming, I'm afraid from parts of the current government in Israel, that they don't believe and they can't put up with a two state solution. Because the alternative to a two state solution is either a no state solution, which is unacceptable, and a continuation of occupation. And, frankly, the Palestinian cause is the just cause, to have a sovereign homeland as safe. Just as it's right and proper for Israel to have a sovereign home that’s safe and secure. So we don't believe in a no state solution. And yes, I suppose you could suggest a one-state solution. But then you would really have to explain how Palestinians and Jews can live side by side in peace. And Palestinians particularly can have exactly the same rights as everybody else. And I'm not sure that, that proposition is a very real one. So we have to hold on to two states. You then need a roadmap to those two states. What we've said is there's got to be a new contact group, we've got to bring in our partners to make sure that happens. I'm not sure there's a role for Russia in terms of the arrangements that we've got currently. You've also got to be really, really clear that there have to be partners for peace. Hamas isn't a partner for peace. They're the people holding up the ceasefire as we speak. So they can't be part of that. So you've got to build up the Palestinian Authority. Recognise that. And you do have to have partners of peace in Israel. Now Israel’s a democratic country, its for them to determine who leads them. And when I've been to Israel, I've been many, many times. And let me just say, my own constituency in Tottenham, I have the Stamford Hill area of London, it's a historic home of our Jewish communities. I've always been very close to Jewish communities in this country. There are there are real traumas now, in Israel. You know, people have been moved not just from the southern borders as a result of the October 7 attack. Vicious. Awful. Hostages, obviously, still in Gaza, but also the northern borders because of Lebanon, and fears that that Hezbollah would come across those borders as well. So there is real trauma. And it's important to recognise that. Trauma now on both sides. Way too many people have died. Women. Children. I think as we speak it’s over 34,000 people have lost their lives in Gaza. So this is a tremendous challenge. But we have to stay in it. Britain has a historic role to play and hold on to the partners to peace and when they emerge to get to that two state solution.

Michael Fullilove 

Let me ask you about the United States. I read the very interesting profile of you in the New York Times recently, where you were very confident that if you're elected, you could have a good relationship with the United States, regardless of who the Americans elect. But I mean, let's be honest, there's huge apprehension about the possibility of Donald Trump returning to the White House. This is a very different American figure from the one you had up on your walls growing up. He, you know, whether you go to the attack on the Congress, even his approach on tariffs, I mean, he's never seen a tariff that he didn't like. He's making all sorts of threats about tariffs, which obviously runs counter to the to the British approach. So how would you, if you're elected and Mr. Trump is elected president, how would you keep the special relationship special?

David Lemmy

Well, look, let's be clear, the special relationship goes beyond whoever's in the White House or in Number 10. It's a special relationship predicated on a history, a history of which Australia has been an important part. It really comes out of the experience of the Second World War and the rules based order that we committed to together. Central to that relationship, of course, is the Five Eyes system. And you know, when you've got the privilege of doing a job like mine, and I came into this role in November. And at that stage, the big debate was about the fact that we had managed to vaccinate our populations from the COVID. But much of Africa, much of the global south were on sort of 2 or 3% of their population. There was real sense that we'd been hoarding the vaccines. That was the big debate. I then get a call, we think there's a problem emerging in Ukraine. And I go in for intelligence briefings and it's very, very clear that Russia has got a build up of troops on the Ukrainian border. At that stage, many of our allies in Europe did not believe it. Even when showed the intelligence. That was the Five Eyes system at work. That's the nature of our relationship with the United States, and of course, our combined military endeavors. And we saw that in Iran and those drones just in the last few weeks. If those drones had landed on Jordan and Israel, a lot of civilian people would have lost their lives. And that combined effort is an indication of the strength of the UK and the USA standing together. Look, when we look back on Trump 1, this was the height of Twitter, I think you'd be struggling to find a politician of any stripe in Australia or the UK who didn't tweet or have things to say about Donald Trump. That was part of the moment, wasn't it? But I think Trump 2, if that were to come about, we know now what the modus operandi is. And you have to divorce the rhetoric and the noise from the actuality. And the actuality in terms of Trump and Europe, particularly as… Trump sent more troops to NATO. Trump spent more money on NATO. Trump sent the first javelins to Ukraine after the 2014 invasion into the Donbass. So that is the truth of Donald Trump. That's the actuality of Donald Trump. Yes, of course, it's America first. Because this is an age where clearly up against China, particularly, protectionism is back. But it's not just back in America, it's back in much of the world. Let's be honest about that. So if you know that, then you're able to, you know, persuade where you need to. Be part of an alliance. And I think that the… as I say, AUKUS is a very, very important, generational defining attempt to combine our efforts that I think will be very important for world security for many, many decades to head.

Michael Fullilove 

Now AUKUS, in a way was made in Beijing, David. And what I mean by that is, if it were not for China's rise, but also for its forward leaning approach to all its neighbors and partners, I think it's very unlikely that Australia would have set out on this path of trying to develop and then deploy a fleet of nuclear powered submarines. So let me ask you one question about China. And a labour government's settling point on China. Because if I think about UK policy towards China in the last decade or so it's really seesawed under under Cameron and Osborne. It was all upside and I remember Cameron hosted Xi Jinping in 2015. I think they went for a pint at the pub, Xi Jinping met with Her Majesty. I think the only complaint the Chinese made were the red carpets weren't quite thick enough. And then under under May, and Johnson and Truss, and I think Sunak you've got a UK that's much more hawkish on China. So how would you… how would labor approach China both the opportunities and the challenges?

David Lemmy

Oh, actually, your description there’s not quite right. I mean, it's a seesaw. It's a ping pong. I mean, if you remember, Theresa May was going to sign up Huawei for our 5G network. It was extraordinary. And, you know, I think the Australians got on the phones, the Americans… what the hell are you doing? And there had to be a huge, huge U turn. Then we had Truss go really extreme. We had Boris, didn't know what he was doing. We've had David Cameron come back. He's not been to China, he’s not going to China, because he was doing deals on behalf of China as a private citizen. It's extraordinary! All over the place. So the first thing is that we're going to have an audit when we get into office so that we're properly aware of all the security intelligence that you can only have if you're in government. We want to be consistent and sustained. I spoke to Penny Wong about this. And we've been really clear that there are areas where we will challenge China and we're really concerned about Xin Jiang. There are areas where we will compete with China. And we have to compete. And we have to be secure in our… you know we've had espionage over the last couple of years here that's come to the fore. And so security issues are really, really important. But of course, there are areas where we will cooperate. We have an important trading relationship. Climate requires cooperation. Health requires cooperation, AI requires cooperation. And so it's important that we're engaged. We have been very concerned that the government seems to have given up entirely on engagement with China. No one seems to have gone from our government to China, which is very, very bizarre. We are also concerned, by the way, in Hong Kong. We have a lot of nationals now from Hong Kong, who've made the UK their home. There are real issues for those nationals in terms of the aggression that they're facing overseas, their ability to access their pensions and money. And these are real issues. And it seems to me that the UK has an obligation to those people. So consistent, clear eyed, strong. But of course, we will challenge, compete and cooperate where we can.

Michael Fullilove 

You've mentioned, you're a big supporter of AUKUS, but you also wrote in foreign affairs that you want AUKUS to be a floor not a ceiling for British engagement in Asia. So what would be the other areas of focus for Labour government in the Indo Pacific?

David Lemmy

I think there's more partnership for us, particularly with Australia and New Zealand. What do I mean by that? Well, I'm very conscious of the role of the Commonwealth, which hasn't come up yet. I'm very conscious of Pacific island nations and their real concerns about the climate emergency. I suspect that there is more partnership between the great country of Australia and the UK over this next period, particularly in the area of development. And I do want to explore how we can work together better in the region and the Labour Party believes in development. And I think… Now I'm not harking entirely back to the development of the Gordon Brown, Tony Blair years. I'm thinking of today. What do I mean by that? Well, China's Belt and Road has happened. And in so many countries in the Global South, people can point to the road, to the bridge, to the railway station that was built, but debt comes with it. How can we work together in the region, particularly on climate issues, pooling our resources? I think we can make a big difference. I'm really looking forward to that conversation. And of course, because we're now in these alliances, trade alliances in the area there's a big contribution we can make there as well.

Michael Fullilove 

In the last 14 years or so I think we've had half a dozen Tory foreign secretaries visit Australia. In fact, at the Institute we hosted Liz Truss and also Boris Johnson as foreign secretary. It's been a long time since a labour foreign secretary has visited Australia. Would you commit-

David Lemmy

Hundred percentage. The truth is… Australia was the first trip I made as shadow foreign secretary. I've got very dear friends in Australia who live in Brisbane. So I've got to get to Brisbane when I'm there. I've been to Sydney many, many times.

Michael Fullilove

Not to the Lowy Institute. 

David Lemmy

I haven't been to the Lowy but I will come to the Lowy. Of course, I will. 

Michael Fullilove

Yeah. What were you going to say? There’s something in Sydney you love?

David Lemmy

There’s a beautiful walk that I always do. What's the walk in Sydney, a coastal walk? 

Michael Fullilove

From Coogee to Bondi.

David Lemmy

I love that walk. I always do it when I'm in Sydney. 

Michael Fullilove 

Okay, we'll record the next podcast on that walk.

David, let me finish up with a couple of questions on sport. This is an Australian podcast after all. I know you're a cricket fan and I heard an interview I think you did with Aggers is about the West Indies side. When we grew up with Clive and Viv and Dujon, and all those magnificent fast bowlers. Tell us about your memories of the West Indies cricket team growing up.

David Lemmy

I just remember the way in which we would recreate the West Indies here. You know when the West Indies were coming to town... I remember going to school. So I told you I went to this sort of British… you know it wasn't a public school but it was a pretty posh school, only black kid. And I thought bowling was bowling like taking someone’s head off. And of course, I learned quite quickly that, that was not what was expected. So I… look it was such an exciting… the cricket was so exciting. It sort of lifted your shoulders. It was so entertaining. The West Indies are in town actually a bit I think in the summer so I'll certainly get to the Oval to watch them. So yeah, no, no, I just think of all my uncles and I've got elder brothers and just what it meant that, that great side, you know, over so many series really.

Michael Fullilove 

Finally, David, let me ask you about football. You're a longtime Spurs fan. This year Tottenham has been reinvigorated by an Australian manager, Ange Postecoglou. His attacking style sort of chimes with Tottenham's history and its perception of itself as a football club. Spurs had an amazing first half of the season, they've dropped away a bit in the second half. What kind of impact has Ange had on the club, on the area of North London, on football in the UK? And what are your hopes for Spurs next season? 

David Lemmy

So our motto is ‘to dare is to do’. What we're known for is creative and entertaining football. Big Ange is in that tradition, which was begun by the great Bill Nicholson as manager. But we have people like Terry Venables, Harry Redknapp have all played in that tradition. So that's why big Ang is a big feature. He's brought that back to the team, in a big way. They're a young squad, they're a new squad. We started off well it's got a little bit tougher. I was at the North London Derby actually with Kier Starmer last weekend, where Arsenal won 3-2. But we had possession 70% of the game. We played quite well. So I'm hopeful for next season. I am hopeful for next season and I'm really excited about what Big Ange has brought to the club.

Michael Fullilove 

David, it's been a pleasure to speak with you today here in Leicester Square to hear about your journey from former cathedral chorister to shadow Foreign Secretary. Thank you for joining me today on The Director's Chair and come on you Spurs.

David Lemmy

Come on you Spurs. Thank you. Really wonderful.