'Would I let Labour use my song today? I’d probably say no': Brian Cox on taking over the BBC and why he can't promise his vote to Ed Miliband

Sexy scientist Brian Cox is on a mission to make stargazing and spaceships political priorities. Here he talks politics, tuition fees and being a BBC man with Phoebe Luckhurst
Master of the universe: Professor Brian Cox (Picture: Tara Croser/Newspix/REX)

Brian Cox is as precise as you’d expect a scientist to be, yet far more polemical. He’s best known as the floppy-haired physicist pin-up of BBC science programmes.

But in a former life he was the keyboardist in Nineties dance group band D:Ream, and pop stars are known for their strident political opinions.

I can’t resist asking the obvious soon after he arrives a few minutes late — all messy hair, jumper and jeans — apologising that he got waylaid in the hotel lobby admiring some design quirk.

Would he still let Labour use D:Ream’s most famous song — Things Can Only Get Better — the anthem to Blair’s election glory in 1997?

“Really good question,” he laughs. “I’d probably say no to Labour using the song — there are immense pros and cons to all the parties and I can’t quite see a clear direction. It’s very different now than in ’97. In ’97, it was obvious that everybody supported Blair. But now I think it’s complicated, it’s a muddy political climate. I’m sort of apolitical intentionally, because I’m rather a single-issue person, so it’s definitely not clear-cut.”

Does that mean he’s more of a Tony Blair than an Ed Miliband man? “That’s an impossible question to answer,” he says, and then changes his mind. “Actually, it isn’t impossible, is it? In 1997, I would have said Tony, but I think Tony made some mistakes. So now I’d say Ed because Tony cocked up.”

Screen stars: Cox with his television presenter wife Gia Milinovich (Picture: David Dettmann/Rex)

He adds that he’s “massively interested in politics. It frustrates me and interests me”. And certainly once you get him started, he’s hard to stem.

But we’re here in the clinical surroundings of a hotel in central London to discuss the prestigious Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, a global prize of £1 million, awarded today to the engineer responsible for a “ground-breaking innovation that has been of global benefit to humanity”.

Cox is on the judging panel for the second time. The prize has been awarded to chemical engineer Dr Robert Langer — an MIT professor and chemical engineer who’s made advances in the fields of cancer and mental illness — though when I meet Cox the information is still secret and he rails good-humouredly because he wants to talk about the winner. Instead we discuss the perception that science is still the preserve of “white men,” and how to encourage more diversity.

It’s a misconception, Cox insists, a “totally destructive” one — he points to the judging panel of the QE Prize, which is certainly balanced.

However, he concedes that it’s an area that attracts middle-class men. “The deficit in engineering is particularly women and people from poorer backgrounds. So you can be pragmatic about it and say, ‘Where are we going to get our 1.25 million people from?’ Well, the places where we’re not [currently] getting them from.”

The QE Prize helps, he says, to raise the profile of engineering. “The problem is one of information: it’s certainly not the case that students aren’t interested. Sometimes, they don’t know what engineering is — they’ll say, ‘Oh, I’m not interested in building steam engines!’ and you say, actually engineering could mean designing iPhones, or designing software for iPhones. When you stand in front of a room full of 12-year-olds and ask, ‘Do you want to build a spaceship?’, they say, ‘Yes!’”

Certainly he has a lyrical turn of phrase when he describes astronomy — “It’s fascinating and romantic, letting your imagination drift off into the stars. It’s as powerfully emotionally-driven as writing a novel or a piece of music” — and his sexy scientist presenting is responsbile for a small upsurge of interest, at least.

But the issue needs to addressed on a wider level, he argues: “One of the most important parts of public policy is how we fill the skills gap. And in order to do anything, you need to have a successful economy: and my very strongly held view is that a strong economy comes from investment in education, and science and engineering. And so I think it’s one of the most important things. Against other ones, obviously: in or out of Europe, the general policy on taxation, NHS funding… but they’re up there with those.” He says that we need 1.25 million more people in science and engineering by 2020 — “which is a good thing, because it means the economy is working”, but also cause for concern because we currently don’t have the numbers we need pursuing science onto higher education and beyond.

So is Labour, with its proposals to reduce tuition fees, the way to go in May? Cox demurs — insisting that he hasn’t yet decided which way he’ll vote. He’ll definitely watch the debates, though, and certainly thinks that the way that tuition fees were “branded” was an example of “diabolical politics”. At the very least, he says, fees should “be presented as a graduate tax — it’s political nonsense that it’s not”. This rebrand would demystify the system — and ideally, end fees acting as a deterrent to those who aren’t sure exactly at what point they start to pay it back. This is particularly difficult for those at underprivileged schools, who don’t have access to devoted careers and university advisors and departments.

Smart guy: Brian at Debrett's 500 party (Picture: Dave Benett)
Dave Benett

Indeed, he thinks the existing system short-changes that generation. “Educating the population is in the national interest. And therefore it seems to me that it is one of the things that you should imagine having to pay for. The young get a raw deal in our society at the moment: and one of those ways seems to be in education. It should be a priority in government spending.”

He concedes that institutions fret that abolishing, or even reducing fees, could threaten their existence: “The universities don’t believe that if you take away the fees, the Government will make up [the funding].”

Cox was privately educated at Hulme Grammar and then Manchester University where he read science before taking an MPhil in physics. He received his doctorate from Hamburg.

We discuss how the recent spat between James Blunt and Chris Bryant has reinvigorated the issues of privilege and diversity. He cites St Paul’s Way Trust School, a mixed comprehensive in Tower Hamlets of which he is a patron. “I believe in the redistribution of opportunity,” Cox states. “We don’t live in a level playing field. We cannot argue that the playing field for kids is level.” Would he abolish private schools? “I don’t think that’s the easy answer. I’m also a supporter of excellence — we need to be excellent.”

While we aren’t doing enough (“I don’t think we can ever do enough”), he is encouraged by what he sees at St Paul’s Way: “It’s encouraging. You might imagine somehow that there are more barriers than there are because in fact, that school is moving people on.”

Cox is a BBC man (his last television work was the series Human Universe, which aired on BBC2 last year) and is zealous about the role of the public broadcaster in our democracy; indeed recently, he was reported to have said he’d like to be director-general. “It was kind of a joke — I said something about Attenborough, and that one of the great things was that he wasn’t just a presenter but that he ran BBC2 for a while. To which someone said, ‘Oh, do you want to be a commissioning editor?’ and I replied that if I’m going to do it I want to be top man!” A steely aim — although he thinks that Lord Hall is doing a sterling job (“he understands what powerful institutions are supposed to do”).

Indirectly, scientists are the stars of the awards season: Redmayne as Hawking and Cumberbatch as Alan Turing. Will this help counteract the image problem? “Yeah definitely! [Science] should be central in culture — it’s part of popular culture. It’s one of my little phrases I always say, but it’s too important not to be. Obviously Turing and Hawking need to be celebrated.”

Cox lives in south London with his wife, American television presenter Gia Milinovich (who attracted headlines of her own last year after she boxed an intruder who broke into their home into submission); he hopes his son, who’s almost six, will be interested in following him into science. He “loves Octonauts”, he tells me (a CBeebies show about a cabal of undersea explorer animals). A science degree is a guarantee of a job I suggest. “Absolutely,” he says firmly.

I give him an easy choice: where would he like to be, space or earth? “Space — it’s bigger. However, earth is the place with the most interesting thing we know of in the universe on it — us, civilisation.” Seems Cox’s interest in that extends beyond the purely scientific.

Professor Brian Cox sits on the judging panel of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, qeprize.org

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