10:11am (UK) If I Ruled the World – Tony Robinson By Scheenagh Harrington, PA Features Tony Robinson was born in Hackney in 1946 and made his stage debut at the age of 12 as the Artful Dodger in the original production of Oliver! After a successful career as a child actor, he spent several years in repertory theatre, before getting his big break as Baldrick in the comedy series Blackadder. Tony has presented a number of historical documentaries, including The Real Da Vinci Code, The Worst Jobs in History and has fronted the archaeological series Time Team for more than a decade. Time Team: The Big Roman Dig starts on Saturday July 2. He and his partner Heli divide their time between London and Bristol. He has two grown-up children, Laura and Luke from his first marriage. WHAT WOULD BE YOUR FIRST ACT AS RULER? “For a start I don’t think anybody should be allowed to rule the world. I also know if I did, it wouldn’t just be my good bits that came out, it would be my bad bits as well. I’d suddenly have this huge international army available to me and I wouldn’t trust me with that for a moment. Suppose I got irritated with China? So, let us hope that my first act would be to tell the drugs companies they weren’t allowed to patent any drugs for gene development.” WHO WOULD BE YOUR MOST TRUSTED ADVISER? “Richard Curtis, my mate who started Comic Relief.” WHO WOULD YOU BANISH? “Any politician who was only prepared to act in the national interest.” WOULD YOU BE A DICTATOR OR A BENEVOLENT LEADER? “For the first few months I would be so benevolent, but I would expect the more tired or irritable I got, and the more I was faced with intractable problems, the more despotic I would become.” WHO WOULD YOU SINGLE OUT FOR A KNIGHTHOOD AND WHY? “Busted, for having made such a major contribution to Britain’s culture over the last few years.” WHO WOULD YOU SEND TO THE TOWER/PUT IN THE STOCKS? “Charlie, for leaving Busted.” WHICH LAW WOULD YOU ABOLISH? “I would abolish all laws which prohibited the sale of currently illegal drugs. I think prohibition in any form simply doesn’t work, and we’re in the bizarre situation at the moment where we all laugh at Prohibition in America in the 1920s while at the same time creating a totally unsustainable, gangster-driven world in which one of the great banes of international life is the drugs trade. I would legalise it, tax it and put legal constraints on the use of drugs, just as we do on alcohol, to make sure they were sold to the highest standard and children weren’t able to use drugs until some kind of meaningful age.” WHICH LAW WOULD YOU INTRODUCE? “A law banning the private ownership of banking. All banks from now on would be owned and run by trusts in the public interest. It would be an incredibly progressive society.” WHICH BUILDING WOULD YOU DEMOLISH AND WHY? “I wouldn’t demolish any building until a real analysis had been made of it to ensure there wasn’t a creative use it could be put to. I suspect a time will come when we will regret getting rid of so many high-rises in London for instance, because if we rethought high-rise living rather than just being frightened of it, we may well find it’s a real boon, particularly for young professionals without children.” WHICH RULER/MONARCH DO YOU MOST ADMIRE OR HAVE MOST IN COMMON WITH? “King Creole.” IF YOU COULD CHANGE THE NATIONAL ANTHEM FOR ANOTHER PIECE OF MUSIC, WHAT WOULD IT BE AND WHY? “I think we’ve probably got the worst national anthem of any that I’ve heard. I can’t think of one which does less to stir the spirit and musically it’s one of the most ploddy songs ever. I’d go for Oliver’s Army by Elvis Costello, because it’s ironic and it swings.”
