Those major issues, as you see them, what would you put at the top of the list?

Well, I think obviously the two big wars, Ukraine and Iran, are going to feature largely.

Iran, I think, particularly, but with Ukraine trying to make sure it's not forgotten.

I think there will be a lot of discussion of how to sort of renew the authority of the UN, which will fold into the discussion, the debate about who's the best person to succeed.

Guterres is Secretary General.

And a sort of strange joker issue which has come up very, very quickly, but which is dominating discussion in New York at the moment in the events around the UN proper is AI and, you know, the risk of some global disaster around it and the Longer term prospects for employment around the world, etc.

So, you know, three big issues with climate not to be forgotten as a fourth.

that?

In terms of the last ten years and António Guterres' two terms, how do you think he's navigated that minefield?

It's been a surprise because on paper, and indeed for those of us who knew him, he seemed an almost ideal Secretary General in that he'd been Prime Minister of his country, Portugal, and then spent ten years as the High Commissioner for Refugees.

And yet he's been one of the most disappointing Secretary Generals that we've seen in the organization's eighty-year-plus life.

The standing of the UN has fallen dramatically.

It's been marginalized in not just the major conflicts, Ukraine and Gaza, but even more modest regional conflicts which nevertheless are extracting a huge toll of life, such as Sudan, DRC, Yemen, Myanmar, and the UN is sort of missing in action.

But I think you have to blame above all the situation in which he's been Secretary General, the first Trump term, the disappointing Biden years, and then a second Trump term.

He's never had a partner in the United States who could support peacemaking efforts and development efforts around the world, and other countries have been slow to step in and make up the difference.

Well, I just wonder whether that sort of leads to whether in a way we're expecting too much of the United Nations, that maybe the United Nations needs to scale back its ambition and that it's not so much about conflict resolution as maybe concentrating on things like peacekeeping, things like, I mean, hugely important humanitarian affairs where they, they do seem to have quite a bit of purchase.

I mean, what, what of the man they are succeeding, whoever is eventually picked, António Guterres? H-how do you assess the job that he has done?

Well, it is this perverse thing because, you know, on paper, he should have been a storied secretary-general.

He'd been prime minister of Portugal for a dec- for I think ten years, then run the UN High Commissioner for Refugees for ten years.

So he was the perfect outside-inside candidate, you know, and yet he's been one of the most disappointing holders of the office.

And I think in his case, it's largely been the bad luck of the times and, and period during which he's held it.

He, you know, came into office at the same time as Donald Trump.

He, you know, then had the very disappointing Biden years and then a second Trump term.

But is the UN now capable of being, to use your word, activist, or, or does it now need some serious reform in terms of how it operates, how it votes, who has the most influence within it? In other words, is it now fit for purpose?

What do you think of the decision to put Ed Miliband in that role?

Well, you know, obviously there was some speculation earlier that David Miliband might come back.

Tricky to do given that he do- is not in Parliament.

And, you know, David would've been an, you know, instantly well received around the world.

In the intervening years, he's run the International Rescue Committee, a big American NGO, and has really built a huge sort of standing, uh, across the global community.

But Ed Miliband is no slouch either on the international stage.

His, you know, passionate commitment to the climate issue and the fact that there's a ton of international work around that, conferences, et cetera, mean he's also a well-known figure internationally.

Uh, he's also got to keep Donald Trump on side, hasn't he? Where are the priorities going to be?

Has this information become one of the defining tools of power in international affairs?

I think it's certainly, whether it's the tool or the consequence of what's happened to power, I think remains always a little uncertain because I think you've got to put it in the context of the breakdown of both the domestic and the international political order as we've known it through most of our lifetimes.

And we're sort of in a way familiar with both.

We know that domestically in many of our countries, there is an extraordinary sort of populist movement driven by certain groups in society feeling inferior.

a new economic insecurity, a loss of wealth versus other groups in society.

And this has been transformational in all our countries.

It's sort of knocked the bottom out of the sort of social democratic 80 years that we've lived through.

How much of this current information crisis is really a crisis of trust in Western institutions?