In this episode, Visualising Peace researcher Harris Siderfin interviews Lord Jim Wallace, Baron Wallace of Tankerness, about his career and the relationship between peace and politics in the UK.
Lord Wallace is a Scottish Liberal Democrat politician with a long career of service in the House of Commons, the Scottish Parliament and the House of Lords, where he has been a life peer since 2007. He has held various ministerial positions during his time in government, including Deputy First Minister of Scotland, acting First Minister twice, Justice Minister and Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Minister. He trained initially in law, and in addition to his political career he is an advocate and member of the King's Council. He served as Advocate General for Scotland between 2010 and 2015, and he was Deputy Leader of the House of Lords from 2013 to 2015. He stood down as leader of the Liberal Democrat peers in the House of Lords in 2016 but retains an interest in human rights and constitutional affairs. Among other roles, he served as Moderator of the General Assembly of Scotland in 2021.
In the episode, Lord Wallace reflects on his long career in politics and on the various ways in which he has seen politics and peacemaking intersect over that time. He reflects on the lack of political interest in solving conflict in Northern Ireland prior to John Major's premiership; on political debates about the first and second Gulf Wars, the renewal of Trident (as a nuclear deterrent), the UK's response to the use of chemical weapons in Syria; and on the limited discussions in Westminster about ways to address conflict in the Balkans, particularly in Bosnia. Lord Wallace is clear that peace is not as high a priority in political debates and campaigning as many other issues, and also that political understanding and discussion of peace-making (as opposed to peace-keeping) is somewhat lacking.
Lord Wallace and Harris consider positive steps forward: for instance, more attention paid to justice, equality, mental health, climate change, poverty and discrimination, as key aspects of peacebuilding. Reflecting on his own faith, Lord Wallace also talks about the role that different religions and religious leaders can play in promoting peace both at home and abroad. Several times the conversation also turns to connections between democracy, debate and peacebuilding, with Lord Wallace stressing that increasingly combative, polarising modes of political discussion are driving more conflict. This ties into some work which the Visualising Peace team is doing on connections between peacebuilding and Responsible Debate (as outlined in the Young Academy of Scotland's Responsible Debate Charter).
We hope you find the discussion interesting. For a version of our podcast with close captions, please use this link. For more information about individuals and their projects, please visit the University of St Andrews' Visualising War website.
Music composed by Jonathan Young
Sound mixing by Harris Siderfin and Zofia Guertin