Evan Davis: I believe people have a right to be bigoted about gays

12 April 2012

There is a conversation most of us have had about the state of the nation. In pub economics, the Germans do precision engineering, the Japanese produce electronics, the Italians make luxury goods and ravioli -and the British?

We don't make anything any more, we say, angrily wiping beer-froth from our mouths. And at this point, the conversation usually becomes ill-tempered. We're decadent, deluded, doomed, held over a barrel by those cowboys in the City.

But here comes funky Evan Davis, whose gift for putting complex economics into ordinary language made him a rare winner in the financial crisis. In a new book and TV series, Made in Britain, the Today programme and Dragon's Den presenter takes an audit of the British economy, visiting pharmaceutical reps and aerospace innovators to ask, as he puts it, "what the frig we do as a nation".

Davis answers with an account that's as non-controversial as you would expect from a BBC man. Then again, at a time when the national debate is agenda-led and angry, his diplomatic tone is welcome between John Humphrys's caustic growls on the Today programme.

"Firstly, we do make a lot," he stresses over a glass of chablis at the Langham (it's early afternoon but he has been up for 12 hours). As he is keen to remind us, manufacturing makes up 12.8 per cent of our total output; financial intermediation - those cowboys in the City - only 7.7 per cent. "In value terms, just because what we make is small and you don't see it so much doesn't mean it's not worth a lot."

What we are not is a basket case. "We are manifestly a Premier League economy. We didn't cheat our way into that league - we've got skills and creativity and innovation. What we're not is Manchester United - but we're not in the division below either."

So welcome to Britain, the Sunderland AFC of the world stage: great in the 19th century, less good after the war, but pootling on respectably these days. He made the series he says, "because I think it's important that when you're in the depths of despair you're reminded that it's not as bad as you think."

Ah yes, about those days when we thought we were rolling in it. Few economists then warned of the dangers of racking up debt, both personal and national. I wonder if he thinks we were a decadent culture, and for a moment, his flow is interrupted. "You're slightly falling for the argument that we've cheated, that we don't deserve the lifestyle that we have".

Well, a few people have made an effortless packet out of spiralling house prices in a way that's made things harder for the rest of us. He doesn't see this as a problem of home-ownership per se.

"I think a lot of people feel there's an innate problem with our relationship with housing: an avarice that manifests itself in short-term attempts to make money without properly earning it that makes the income that we have undeserved and unsustainable. There are pieces of this I agree with - but they're all little bits. It's not the basic story."

One of those little pieces is a pretty serious one, all the same: "Low-skilled jobs are not really paying enough to support families. Having a room per child is a perfectly reasonable aspiration and it's really difficult to pay for that in London unless you're really rich."

But this is the legitimate gripe of many Londoners: that we have destabilised society in a bid to appeal to a new class of the international super-rich of whom we ask too little in return. He agrees, but, as is customary, up to a point.

"The distribution of income has become a difficult issue because rich people bring with them a coterie that is helpful for an economy. So in the global battle for their money there is a tendency to strike tax deals. Britain is at the forefront of this. It's nice to have Lakshmi Mittal [the billionaire steel magnate] here - he's hiring British lawyers and accountants. But it makes it difficult when the rich and poor live in the same society."

In any case, the service model is resilient: "We've just had the biggest shock we're likely to suffer for 20 years. We have the capacity to change course if we need to, but economies are always about doing things that make money for the future.

It's not mad to say, 'We've got all these rich people coming, we can sell them houses, we can be their butlers and waiters and we can service them and pick up their crumbs'."
So there we have it: we are the world's butler. In a Sunderland strip. Eating crumbs. It's a living, I suppose.

He doesn't budge much from the fence. "Yeah, I'm very comfortable on the fence," he says, delightedly. In his broadcasting, this conciliatory nature is both his strength and, in the eyes of those who consider him lightweight, a weakness.

Born in Surrey to South African parents, he studied at Oxford and Harvard and was an economist before joining the BBC in 1993. Now, after three years on Today, he is part of the furniture and, at 49, "couldn't be more content", professionally.

The morning of our meeting, he skewered Theresa May effectively enough, asking repeatedly and reasonably why we need a new agency to deal with organised crime. He was pleased with the interview, particularly the "cheeky-chappy" question where he asked if she'd eat her shoes if the agency was reformed again in 10 years. Later, he likened the redesigned Olympic torch to a poo.

"I think you want that balance of tone," he reflects. "There was a danger that the success of [Jeremy] Paxman and [John] Humphrys led the BBC to conclude that we only needed people like them - and that's dreadful. That would be a coarsening of the national conversation, and it gets in the way if that's the only tone."

His own style testifies to a more gently probing mind and his image - which has been dissected by certain corners of the media - has made for a breath of fresh air among the grump-a-dumps. He is openly gay and lives in a flat in Earl's Court (which he owns) with his long-term partner Guillaume Baltz, a French landscape architect.

He won't tell me how many piercings he has (there is a rumour he has a "Prince Albert") but he does tell me he last went to a gay club about a year ago, popping into Heaven with Guillaume out of curiosity after a trip to the National Theatre.

"It was a good case for saying that Britain is no more decadent now than it used to be."
On balance, he says, his sexuality has helped rather than hindered his career. When I raise the recent case of the gay couple who were ejected from the John Snow pub in Soho, apparently for kissing, he chooses his words carefully.

"I think we have to tolerate other people's feelings. In the great spectrum of things, I don't think discrimination against gay men, or being barred from bed and breakfasts or pubs, is very prevalent.

"Put it this way: compared to most of the gay people I know, I am way to the other end of the spectrum in believing that people have a right to be bigoted. It would be unfair if gay people were denied legal rights that other people have but my libertarian self is big enough to say that there are some rights there. I don't know where we draw that line but people do have a right to say what they want happening in their house."

He is visibly conflicted on the point, aware of his own privilege. He doesn't want to be an "Uncle Tom who doesn't know you're a victim".
But, he says, "There's a statistical problem that arises here. It's the Ali G line: 'Is it cos I is black?' Now supposing you are black, or gay, or short, or some status that is perceived as disadvantageous.

If you fix upon that status you will then make the statistical mistake of viewing the random knocks that anybody has in their life and assuming they're because you are black or gay."
That's the economist speaking - and it's a voice most of us are happy to wake up to.

Made in Britain is on BBC2 at 9pm on Monday June 20. The book of the same name is out now, published by Little Brown.

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