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I
welcome to Sputnik orbiting the world
with me George Galloway and me gri an
empty taxi pulled into New Palace yard
and Clement Atley climbed out of it so
the anecdote goes to illustrate the
supposed anonymity of one of Britain's
most important prime ministers the man
who defeated the Great War leader
Winston Churchill in the 1945 labor
Landslide as George wbus might put it
they misunderestimated Clement Atley and
by the end of his Premiership he
completely changed Britain and the
greatest of his achievement the NHS is
such that even today 70 years on none
dare breathe the world against it even
the Tories who fought it with a level of
class hatred that makes the enemies of
Obamacare look like a tea party well you
know what I mean he was a modest man
Clement Atley but with nothing to be
modest about and his biographer is the
Ace author of The Great Book book we've
previewed here Blair Inc and his new
book Clen Atley is especially welcome
now that another modest man appears to
be preparing to step into his shoes as
leader of the labor party Francis Becket
is the author and he joins us now
Francis thanks for coming on board the
Sputnik just for the younger viewer by
which I mean anyone under 70 who really
was Clement Atley Clement Atley was the
uh was the Prime Minister who took an
uncivilized society and made a civilized
one out of it he was the man who created
the welfare state who ensured that if
you were unemployed it didn't mean that
you and your family would starve he was
the man who created who ensured the
great civilizing principle that nobody
should be allowed to die of a treatable
illness simply because they couldn't
afford the treatment and that's the
principle that underlies the the
National Health Service and the
principle that despite many efforts from
right-wing politicians has survived to
this day he's the man who created the
state school system that we have today
um it it's it's been battered and
bruised since A's time but essentially
the idea that every child between the
ages of five and the school leaving age
is entitled has a right to a school
place and an education that comes out of
the Atley government what he created was
a society in which everybody was going
to have an opportunity to grow up to
have proper medical treatment and to be
educated before the second world war
thousands and thousands of workingclass
children grew up unable to read and
write after the Atley government by the
mid-50s there were very very few
practically none that's the measure of
atley's achievement and yet to do that
he had to defeat Winston Churchill who
had just won with his allies the second
world war that was a feat that could
never have been uh guessed at I'm
thinking it's very interesting in fact
people say you know that a a candidate
has to be prime ministerial they're
still saying it you know does this or
that candidate sound Prime ministerial
well nobody sounds Prime ministerial
until they're prime minister in 1945
Prime Ministers were great oratorical
figures like Winston Churchill except
that the people elected Clement Atley
and you'll find the same over and over
again when a new sort of prime to get
selected people are saying he's not
prime ministerial Herbert Morrison from
the rightwing of the labor party was
saying we cannot possibly offer this
unassuming little man to the re Herbert
Morrison wanted to replace Atley in 1945
as Labour's leader because he said Atley
didn't sound Prime ministerial he's
indeed the the grandfather of Peter
mandon so perhaps that's not surprising
that he was conspiring against the
leader he is indeed and he was
conspiring against the leader it's an
odd coincidence it appears to run in
families that sort of thing but the
difference between Atley and a lot of
leading politicians is that he wanted
power in order to do something in
particular the politicians you can
divide really between those who want to
do something and those who want to be
something Atley wanted to do something
by the way to be fair most politicians
are a little bit of a mixture of both
and it's perfectly reasonable that they
should be he wasn't particularly
interested simply in sitting in s
sitting in the role and being called
prime minister and having everybody
running around doing what he said he was
there to change something and he did and
he certainly wasn't there to do what
that subject of your uh last great book
uh did Tony Blair uh in order to go on
and make a fortune somewhere in that
sense I suppose he was a modest man atly
in that he was no flash Harry he wasn't
using the Premiership or the leadership
of the labor party to feather his own
nest actually he died leaving just
£7,000 which I suspect Tony Blair would
rather rather have despised and laughed
at um he was when he when he left the
leadership of the labor party um he was
at first rather worried that he wasn't
going to leave enough money for his wife
who was much younger than he was to to
to live on adequately he was and and so
he embarked on a lecture tour of the
United States simply in order to to to
raise a bit of money he was never a
particularly rich man and never wanted
to be a particularly rich man Atley
gained office in in a time period uh
that a lot of colonized country gained
their independence Indonesia for example
in that same year 1945 proclaimed suaro
proclaimed Independence how was his
relation internationally in in this in
this era it was actually who really
started the process of Britain divesting
herself of her colonis and of saying no
we we we can't run the world he began uh
with particularly with Burma and with
India um and in India everybody was
saying you you can't do it you can't uh
give India Freedom it it won't work um
and Atley was convinced that we couldn't
not do it and that it had to be done
quickly and um and so he he did it far
far more quickly than than the foreign
Secretary of the time would have wished
or than anybody would have wished but
but I think he was clear that whatever
was going to happen to India in the
future it couldn't be dictated by
Britain and of course the process was
continued Years Later by Harold McMillan
but but it was Atley who was certainly
the first British Prime Minister who
understood that Britain was not the
future of Britain was not as a great
Imperial power that changed a lot he did
uh of course do things of which I maybe
also you uh would uh approve of less yes
he secretly uh joined the United States
in the nuclear arms race
uh it said that Britain has an
independent nuclear deterrent but of
course it's not independent and wasn't
right from the start he didn't tell
either the parliament or in fact even
the cabinet that he was doing that's
true true he joined the uh the um United
States in the uh war in Korea for
example uh where was he on the Spectrum
on world politics like
that broadly he was it's quite
interesting how the decision to uh to
for Britain to have an independent
nuclear deterrent came about at first
Atley had been opposing it and he he'd
been opposing it internally and he he
was all his life an advocate of what he
called World Government he was the most
enthusiastic advocate of the United
Nations right from the start and he he
believed that he had
this slightly idealistic belief that
that there could be a world government
and no more war if governments knew how
to work together to create it and he was
fiercely opposed to the independent
nuclear deterrent the foreign secretary
Ernest ban was in favor of it uh what
happened of course was that we were
investigating it alongside the Americans
uh after Hiroshima the Americans started
to refuse to share any of its nuclear
secrets with Britain
and uh it so it was a question of
creating an independent nuclear deterant
or being being entirely dependent upon
the United States now I think what I
would have wanted to do but perhaps what
you would have wanted to do was to say
look we don't need this thing that was a
stain on at's
record it's one of the very few um and
in his defense you have to say that he
was able to use it as a bargaining chip
with the Americans uh and when um
President Harry Truman was talking about
or thinking about using the using
nuclear weapons in Korea aty threw flew
to Washington and I mean nobody is ever
going to say actually persuaded him not
to do it least of all Clem Atley who
didn't tend to boast of that sort of
thing because he thought if he boasted
of it it wouldn't happen but the fact is
that when Atley flew flew out to see
Truman Truman was thinking about using
the bomb and also was not ready to fire
General
MacArthur when Atley flew back Truman
didn't use the bomb and he did fire The
General
well um another modest man appears to be
poised as I say uh to take over the role
as leader of the labor party do you see
any comparison any similarities between
the two men not a huge amount I have to
say yes Jeremy Corbin is another modest
man but Jeremy Corbin has been a rebel
all his political life and
and was comfortable I don't I don't mean
this unkindly but was comfortable with
that Rebellion Atley was never a Reb
Rebel never intended to be always
interested in uh solely in getting and
obtaining power in order to use that
power for a particular purpose uh
however I think it's I I think it's fair
to say that Atley would have understood
Jeremy Corbin in much the same way that
he understood
nban I it and it's certainly the case
that if Atley had been the leader of the
labor party in any time in the past 20
years or so Jeremy Corbin would not been
languishing on the back benches all that
time he would have been brought into the
tent he would have been given real work
to do um and and and a real contribution
towards towards making a a better
Society um and it's and and that's
because Atley had the the enormous
self-confidence that enabled him to do
that and he he would he would have
brought Jeremy Corbin into the tent and
and Jeremy Corbin would now if he was a
candidate for leader now will be a
candidate for leader who could boast of
cabinet experience yeah very interesting
Francis Becka author amongst many other
fine books of Clem Atley a new edition
out now in paperback thanks for coming
on the sputnick thank you George always
a pleasure coming up after the break Fed
Up by which I mean obese overweight
dying of overeating especially
overeating sugar in that case you better
tune in to hear our interview with
Professor Jimmy Bell after
this
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welcome back to Sputnik did you know
that a 20 o bottle of fizzy drink
contains 17 teaspoons of sugar and a pot
of tomato sauce contains almost double
the amount of sugar as a pack of
M&M's sugar is everywhere fructose
dextrose sorbital corn syrup are but a
few of more than 50 names on your
ingredients list masking what they
really are sugar
no wonder more than half of men and
women and more than a quarter of
children in the UK are overweight or
obese and last month Figures were
released showing that 1 million people
in the UK in just one decade have been
diagnosed with diabetes joining us now
is Dr Jimmy Bell who has all the inside
and outside of the emerging public
health hazard maybe Public Health crisis
and more welcome Dr Jimmy thank you for
invting me we uh first began to look at
your work because we saw a documentary
film called fed up which I thought I
knew it all I always think I know it all
I certainly didn't know things were as
bad as they currently are in the US but
catching up here in the UK that's that's
correct I think the the Obesity problem
which is a pandemic is a it's a
worldwide problem it's not just related
to the to the USA but it's also a
pandemic across Europe Europe and most
countries paradoxically we as we have
many and many more people becoming obese
we also have as many people actually
having poor nutrition and malnutrition
across the world so this is one of the
paradoxes that we live in but the crisis
when it come to actual obesity is a
major crisis that not only affect the
individual but also affect society it is
calculated that over 300 or 400 billion
pounds have been uh spent across Europe
and probably about trillion uh pounds
are going to be spent across the world
in obesity related problems it probably
going to bankrupt many countries in 10
or 20 years
time my God I looked at the documentary
in
horror not just at the scale of the
diabetes problem the scale of the
Obesity problem but the rapaciousness of
the corporations who are profiting from
it knowing just like the tobacco Giants
before them knowing the impact that
they're having on the people who are
buying their stuff yes one of the the
issues is that um in the case of smoking
or or alcohol you don't actually need to
do it they are no essential food is
essential for your life and we evolve to
life certain things because we're very
rare in nature so if you go back 20
30,000 years ago humans will find very
difficult to uh to find sugar salt and
fat so our brains have evolved to like
more but that's not that's not where it
Li that's absolutely correct that there
there's a tendency to to demonize fat
and fat people um has been the fault of
the individual we all live within a
society the way we structure our society
both commercially and our our homes our
workplace influence the way we actually
live uh and to assume that an individual
can actually fight against the the
forces actually providing us an
environment that will actually make us
an environment what we call obesogenic
an environment that will actually lead
us to obesity it will be very very
difficult so the question is re in
reality what is the thin people
around because we have create an
environment where we should all be obese
and that's because food is available
very cheap with hidden calories most
most of the time bad quality food from a
nutritional point of view but High int
density in calories which are available
to our children to ourselves all the
time on top of that physical activity we
do very little physical activity
nowadays we are provided with cars our
offices are provided with things where
we spend all day sitting down in front
of computers then we get into public
transport we get home we sit down to
watch television the whole of industry
and Society is made for us to do very
physic very little physical activity and
consume large amount of calories so it's
not surprising that there are so many
obese people then we get hit by the fact
that we got a dieting industry which is
creating new fats all the time it's
telling us change this most of it based
on very little scientific data so we've
been bombarding on one side and in some
cases even uh subsidized by brands that
are of Industry absolutely it's actually
quite contradictory that some of the
dieting industry the major industry
actually subsidiary of the food industry
itself so on one side they're making us
fat and on the otherwise they're trying
to make us make a thing in both ways
actually taking good business isn't it
exactly in in in which case you're
actually making money both ways so it's
a win-win situation for industry so what
is the answer uh doctor um we could
obviously in a command economy we could
uh ban these things um but that's not
really attainable even if it was
desirable uh isn't the best way to tax
them can we have fat
taxes
well is it's an important and
interesting question how do we tackle
this and this is not about a controll
economy obesity occurs in almost any
society whether you have a a capitalist
Society or what you might call a
communist Society obvious is still a
problem because it's actually generated
for us I said early on the way we are
hardwiring our brain to lie certain
things and availability of a food which
is rich in calories you can consume a
large amounts without much
cost I think we need to change society
the way we educate people the way we
educate children about diet the way we
educate them about physical activity for
example most doctors in this country are
not taught anything about nutrition as a
serious subject in medicine most doctors
have not taught anything about physical
activity as part of your health habit so
we are very good at curing disease but
not preventing it so what we need is a
preventive medicine so we need to change
our society the way we actually for
example access to cycle Lanes you know
to cycle in in London it's a danger to
your life every day I have some plans on
that have to remain unrevealed yeah uh
we we should have access to buildings
where we people can actually physically
work well even when they're actually in
front of a computer for example standing
desks yeah you can actually change where
you position the toilet that a long time
ago the I I was in Vietnam once uh well
many times but in Vietnam once I went to
a puppet theater in Hoi Min City and
half of the people in the theater were
very thin and half of the people in the
theater were very fat and I wondered why
they were all Vietnamese but the fat
ones were the children of the people who
had left Vietnam and gone to the United
States at the end of the war in 1975 the
thin ones were still living in Vietnam
by Thin I don't mean unhealthily thin
they were very healthy and thin exactly
I wanted to step on that because you
Doctor you coined the phrase or concept
tofi thin
Outside Inside fat inside fat inside
sorry um which actually worries me
because if you walk outside you don't
see fat people doesn't mean that these
people are not in danger you see th
people and they can still that that's
that's that's correct and and the
problem that it comes with the
definition of health and there's too
much emphasis nowadays in health in
relation to weight and weight doesn't
tell you anything about your health
really per se it should be about
lifestyle choices that you can actually
make now when you talk about Vietnam and
you see theme people and F people I
think if you go back to Vietnam now
that's not going to be true if you went
to China 20 years ago you wouldn't find
that many of his children people but
nowadays there are so it's because there
wasn't access to those calories in a
cheap way available to the general
population and now if you went back 300
years ago or 100 years ago fat was
related to power so very powerful and
wealthy people were actually very large
now the inverse is true there a there's
a inverse correlation I.E the more power
and wealth you have the thinner you
actually are and and that's because now
those who are wealthy and have access
access to good food can stay thin and
have a lifestyle that allows them to be
thin the more working people who have
have to have work long hours in very
stressful jobs uh they don't have access
to facilities where they can do physical
activities including their children are
people who actually putting weight
weight on that's why the great majority
of the population nowadays H have a a a
weight problem so coming back to your
the tofe concept is that people believe
that if they can restrict their diet
intake I how many calories they take in
then they can actually stay healthy but
that's not correct you have to know look
at how many calories you take but also
the quality of those calories so if you
eat very lots of sugar but in a small
amount yeah and you're still going to
look thin but you're still going to be
unhealthy also if you don't have
physical activity as part of your daily
uh life also you're going to be
unhealthy so you can actually for
example superm modals are actually quite
th but their fat distribution is
completely wrong so we have shown that
they have lots of internal fat within
their body Al although of course they
look very slim and that's because
they're not allowed to do physical much
physical activity because they're not
allowed to have the delineation of their
muscles the lack of physical activity is
as important for your health or your ill
health as it is eating too much so
physical inactivity is I should make
major problem in Western Society we
don't do in our physical activity good
note to end on let's go out and have a
jog around the I I I will actually say
that you don't need to have a jog you
need to walk every day you know don't
catch the lift you know go up this the
stairs if you're going to go to a toilet
don't go to a toilet in the same floor
that you work but actually go upstairs
or downstairs do those little thing get
off the bus one or two stops before or
after walk walk home if you answer the
phone don't answer the phone sitting
down answer the phone while you actually
walking and so forth all those little
things will actually be enough in the
day day-to-day context to actually make
a massive difference to your health Dr
Jimmy Bell good advice I'm glad that we
looked you up thanks very much indeed
thank
you and now it's your turn to tell us
what you think through the portals of
social media what's RL and gy well the
question is what would Clement edley um
make of today's labor leadership uh
campaign and Rowan rier says he'd be
shocked three of the candidates being
more or less Tes I don't agree they're
more or less Tes but uh they may be
heading in that direction at least a
couple of them sugar how bad is it
really for you Ricardo Picasso says well
a spoonful helps the medicine go down
but a can of Coke will rot you inside I
I was astounded both by the damage that
sugar does and how pervasive it is
everywhere who knew it was in cans of
tomato sauce I didn't everywhere hot
dogs you'll be you see it all in the
film um and lastly AG Dary adds on the
Coca-Cola thing that actually it's best
rust remover I've ever tried that's all
that we've got for this week which alas
means that's the end of the show you can
stay in touch with us on Twitter at _
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today it's goodbye from me gri and from
me George Galloway it's been
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marvelous