So Lord Patton, welcome to Stanford.

And. >> Thanks very much.

I've been here before.

I've lectured a couple of times at the Hoover Institute,

where I think they were slightly nervous about my own brand of conservatism.

>> [LAUGH] >> But I survived in one piece, survived

long enough to go and do one of, do two of the lakeside talks, so it's Bohemia Grove.

So I've been through every sort of anthropological

excitement imaginable in North California.

>> Well, we appreciate you hopping across the pond to join us again today,

and whilst we're spoiled with many a guest throughout the year.

Few have been involved in so many historical moments as your good self nor

worked with so many leaders, ranging from through to the pope.

So we've got quite a lot to cover but I'll try to take a whistle soar through it all.

And perhaps given that the audience is Stanford students we

can start with your role as the chancellor of Oxford, and

given that it's such a historical old educational institute.

How are you ensuring to keep it relevant and

that it continues to attract top global talent?

>> First of all, a word about the role.

Oxford is the oldest university in Britain.

They're not the oldest in Europe or indeed in Europe and Africa.

It's Europe or Africa is and the oldest in Europe probably Paris.

But we're pretty getting on for 900 years.

>> [LAUGH] >> And we have a college which

the professor was called new college, and

it's called New College because it was founded in the 15th century.

13th century. [LAUGH] So it's very, very new.

My old college was founded in the 12th century, and

it celebrates it's 800 or 850th anniversary about every two years.

It's a way of making money.

>> [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH]

There've been a lot of chancellors over the years.

I do point out that at Cambridge,

three of their chancellors have been executed and one has been canonized.

>> [LAUGH] >> Whereas at Oxford,

three have been canonized and only one's been executed.

>> [LAUGH] >> So we've done rather better.

These days, The chancellor is elected by all graduates

and I'm only the fourth since 1935,

Lord Halifax who as ambassador in the States and foreign secretary.

Harold McMillan who was Prime Minister in 1960, Roy Jenkins who

was president of the European commission and probably the greatest reforming

interior home secretary in our politics since the war in 1983.

And I was elected in 2003.

The job is elected for life and

I used to say like the Pope, but I can't say that anymore, so like the Dalai Lama.

I probably can't say that if there are any Chinese representatives present.

And the job is one surrounded by mystery.

Roy Jenkins, my predecessor, used to say it was one in which

Impotence was assuaged by magnificence.

It's been assessed Harold McMillan who was a sort of Edwardian intellectual

used to offer a more metaphysical explanation.

He used to say well as you know, the vice chancellor actually runs the university.

But if you didn't have a Chancellor you couldn't have a Vice Chancellor.

So I'm like a sort of ceremonial monarch.

I'm a constitutional monarch, lot's of ceremonial stuff, lots of fundraising.

I chair selections of new Vice Chancellors.

And generally, try to make a paint of myself with governance of they're not

supportive enough of the University.

The most important thing for us to do at Oxford

is to ensure that we remain a terrific teaching institution.

George Cannon Who I think is one of the great prince's of the American republic.

George Kennan said that teaching at Oxford he thought was incomparable.

And even though it's expensive,

we have to try to keep it that with our tutorial system.

And we have to make sure that we are still

Pushing the boundaries of knowledge as far forward as possible.

Our medical sciences division, there I say this in Stanford,

has come top of the global lead tables for five years running now.

And our math and engineering have got better and better.

One of our senior mathematicians won the Abel Prize this year And

humanities at Oxford are terrific.

I would like for them to be better.

And I'm particularly concerned at the moment that while we can still rise quite

easily with a bit of effort funding for.

Scholarships for graduate studies in sciences and medicine.

It's much more difficult to do so in the humanities.

And that is partly because of the disgraceful way in which

universities tend to be judged in almost an utilitarian fashion these days,

rather than for more general considerations.

To find myself as chancellor occasionally having to make speeches

justifying teaching the humanities is a bit annoying.

But as I always, we teach the humanities because we're humans.

So, my job is to try to ensure that and people continue to

deliver the quality of teaching we require, and the quality of research.

We've just appointed a new vice chancellor

who is Irish American, College Dublin, UCLA, no one is perfect.

>> [LAUGH] >> Harvard.

She was one of Drew Fousts' proteges and when she was the executive dean of

the Advanced Studies there, then ran St.

Andrews in the UK where she among other things had to take on the Royal Golf Club.

And what I will not say because I think it's highly offensive so I want to

make the point that she's the first woman who's ever been Vice-Chancellor of Oxford.

But she is and

she is absolutely terrific, a great expert on international security and

has written, I've spent quite a lot of my life in politics dealing with terrorism.

But I think she's written the best academic studies

of how to deal with terrorism than I've read by anyone.

>> So, on the topic of progressing ideas, and

as we move to what many are calling the new innovation economy and

knowledge based economy, >> Silicon Valley is especially

well placed to do so, but I don't think London's too far behind considering we've

now got our own little bubble of San Francisco.

It's essentially Silicon Valley, New York, and Washington in one.

But as we strive to adopt new technology and innovation.

What hurdles do you think remain for London and the UK to progress and

become a little bit more like Silicon Valley?

>> Well, I think there are two basic ones.

First of all If British politicians aren't worried about

the standard of math in our secondary schools, they should be.

Secondly, I think that we don't have

as natural an innovative culture as exists in the United States.

I was interested yesterday.

One of the young undergraduate who helped to organize my campaign for

governor of, it wasn't even that, the of the university.

It was at the reception we had last night in I said what are you doing here and

he said I'm now the economic.

I'm now the head the economics department at Google.

And, I, [LAUGH] terrific that he's here, but,

I wish that he was, doing something, to promote,

innovative culture in the, in the UK.

So, I think we lack the same innovative culture and we haven't made some of

the investments which would have helped to make us even more competitive.

For example, there is an obvious requirement for

a technology and transport corridor between Oxford and Cambridge,

which together are formidable with a growing and successful

record of spinoff, with a lot of shared Interests.

And I think that governments in the United Kingdom have been

pathetic over the years in investment.

I don't think infrastructure investment has been a great

story in the United States since probably President Eisenhower but

that's perhaps another matter.

But I think infrastructure investment

Improving the level of basic math in schools.

And trying to do more to promote innovation.

I don't think, myself, that that has as much

to do with the tax system as some right wing politicians think.

But there are other things you can do to promote To promote that culture I suspect.

>> I'll skip over the topic of taxes, and it's

interesting around how this innovation has been progressive in many ways.

And yet, the gap between the rich and the poor seem to be increasing over time.

How do you think we can reconcile this progression in a more sustainable manner,

and bring everyone else along?

>> I think that's very interesting, and I guess profoundly

relevant to what's happening in your own >> Domestic politics on

which I'll be blessedly almost silent.

>> [LAUGH] >> But also, on ours as well.

[COUGH] There's a very good book which I read recently.

I think it's called Concrete Economics or Concrete Reality.

Which makes the point that it's a complete fiction that wealth and

prosperity have always been created in the United States by the private sector,

that the government has always been a drag.

Not true.

You start with Alexander Hamilton, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR.

You even look at the period of the long Ike boom and

see a combination of public investment and private endeavor.

So the city on a hill was built by government,

as well as by the private sector.

And >> The boom

which probably lasted into the 60s

saw the genie coefficient, and

you all know what that is, falling to the lowest level in American economic history.

So from 1940, I think about 1946, 47 the Gini

coefficient was moving in the right direction.

And since 1968, it's been going in the other direction.

And I sometimes wonder How American politicians get away with the fact

that there is such an astonishing multiple of CEOs pay to mean or average earnings.

There is I think a lot of evidence that this is because people don't actually know

or the figures are, they can't believe the figures if they're told.

When asked, they think there's a multiple of 30.

They don't the multiple ten times or more that ten times that size.

So I think the levels of social inequity in the United States.

And we've been moving in that direction in the United Kingdom,

are becoming politically hazardous.

And if I had to try to explain one of the reason why for

the rage which helps to sustain, Mr.

Trump's ambitions, I would guess that social equity is a very big reason.

I also think that

there is a relationship between social equity and

the sense people have that globalization is wrecking

their prospects and delivering prosperity everywhere else except America.

It's not, of course, true.

But never the less there is that perception.

And we have that in the United Kingdom as well.

The sense people have that they want to get the world in, or stop the world and

get off.

That they want control over their own lives

in a mythical way, which has never really existed.

And certainly hasn't existed during

first periods of globalization in the 19th century or in the last few years.

In the United Kingdom in the last few weeks we've

seen the near demise of our steel industry, why?

First of all because of the dumping of cheap steel by China,

which is producing about half the total amount of student in the world,

and which saw an increase in steel production of 300% between 2008 and

last year.

The British steel industry, in terms of its competitiveness,

has been Has been completely screwed because of that.

So, who's suffering?

Not just the workers, but

an Indian company which owns the British steel industry.

So, when people talk about controlling their lives, so

they can protect their jobs and family's living standards.

That's not the world we live in anymore even if it has been for the last

few years, and I would wish people were making the case for free trade.

Fair trade, but free trade were making the positive case for

globalization more effectively and more Toughly then they are.

It seems to me that the real One of the most important things,

really the most important thing we should be doing in response to

the competitiveness of globalization, is investing more in our public education and

in the improvement of our public education system.

In my own country in particular, investing in further education,

we've always been really bad at any vocational education,

particularly in comparison with Germany.

So, I think social equity is an important part of this but

only part of a broader nexus of issues,

which touched globalization as well.

>> It's- >> Good old Eisenhower.

>> Well, it's interesting in Europe they often refer to nowadays

is the younger curse around politicians know what to do,

they just don't know how to do it and get reelected.

So now that you're a cross venture and I believe you've referred to yourself as

a liberal internationalist these days as opposed to just a conservative NP,

how do you think about commentary that politics is increasingly orchestrated,

politicians are caught up in opinion polls and

going to focus groups to guide them as to what to do next and

balancing the need to be responsive to the electorate but not just reactionary and

be able to deliver a manifesto to address some of the issues that you just raised?

>> I don't see any point in going into politics

unless you've got strong views about things.

And one of the things I find infinitely depressing is

politicians who have to ask a focus group what they should be concerned about and

then ask another focus group how they should explain their concerns about

whatever the first focus group has told them should be bothering them.

And one of the reasons why I found, I'm not making a political pitch,