Douglas Fraser meets Rupert Soames

Savile is now a criminal inquiry. That is the latest news. Now time

for leading questions. Here is These generators are rented out to

major sports events, music festivals but also printed in large

numbers to inter countries where recent economic growth has not been

matched by increased capacity to generate electricity. In Japan, it

was the first on the scene to help plug the power gap. That means that

even through the downturn years, this is one company that has been

doing very well. Last year, they had revenue of �1.4 bn. Pre-tax

profits above �300 million. Look at how big its operations are, bases

in 34 countries. Nearly enough to meet a 10th of Britain's

electricity needs. The man who has led its rapid expansion over the

last nine years is this man. I met him at the Glasgow headquarters to

hear about the business and about his concerns that neither Britain

nor the world are preparing adequately for some big power

shortages ahead. It's go back a few weeks to the London Olympics, the

opening ceremony which impressed a lot of people. You were there

biting your fingernails? I had no fingernails left! Once it was a

huge success and it was a fantastic moment for Britain but for us in

particular, it has been a triumph, what we did for the Olympics. It

was the biggest contract we had for a major event. The opening and

closing ceremonies and ran 100% on our power. We did it faultlessly

but when you are sitting there, just waiting for that moment when

half the lights go out and you thank, it might be us. It is nerve-

racking. You pard the Beijing Olympics, the London Olympics,

Glastonbury Festival, the World Cup - a lot of pressure clearly bills

of around the big events? Yes and I think it is because we are paranoid

about that and be cared desperately about our reputation. We could lose

a reputation in a flash, literally. But we have been doing it for a

long time and we have been doing the Olympics for over 20 years. We

have a team of very experienced people doing it other thing that we

are the world leaders in doing this sort of thing but if you are not

paranoid about the fact that you are always worried about things

going wrong, you can become complacent. The reputation of the

company is built on these massive public events but that is a

relatively small part of the business? He is less than seven or

8% of our Business but it is a very high profile apart. Our business

splits into two parts. We have half of it involved in providing

temporary partitions to emerging and developing countries where they

have not been able to have enough capacity to cope with very high

levels of demand for electricity. The other half is based in America,

Europe, Australia and the Middle East, which is much more

transactional, where we're doing small contracts for industrial

companies. Something breaks down in their factory and the need extra

power. Maybe it is a hot summer and they want extra cooling. You are

filling a gap for what is happening in the local -- global economy. You

are the people who come in and fill the gap? The racial increase for

power is astonishing. Last year there were more mobile phones

subscribers in sub Saharan Africa than in the whole of the EU. 340

million people there had a mobile phones, all of which needed to be

charged and is reflecting the growth of these economies. We are

bumping along at 0.1 rates of growth. Look at countries like

Kenya, Vietnam, Brazil, crowing at six, 8, 9% but they demand for

electricity will grow faster than that so many of our customers are

growing their demand for electricity by eight or 10% a year.

Their economies cannot keep up with the rate of investment required in

terms of bringing on new power generation to be able to cope with

that demand. The last year when the tsunami hit Japan and its nuclear

power capacity very badly. The company was quickly in their at the

same time that others were pulling out. Giddiness is to be operating

at the time. Disaster does look like a big opportunity for you.

wouldn't say we thrive on disaster. Helping people cope with the

aftershocks of major natural or other disasters is part of our

business, the relatively small part, I have to say. Many more parts of

her business... We also had the Christchurch earthquake in New

Zealand which we responded to and we had floods in Brisbane and when

people are in distress, one of the things they need to get back

quickly his power because you have a very basic functions like getting

water supply, very often that is what they need us to get power to

hospitals and water supply and the pumps going again. I wouldn't say

we thrive but responding to emergencies is part of our job and

that is part of the school we have to have. A went askew about

yourself, people can avoid this fact, you are the grandson of

Winston Churchill. A lot of your family has made a big name in terms

of politics, journalism, finance and public affairs - how big a

burden is it to be the grandson of Winston Churchill? I wouldn't say

it is a burden. I a lot of bird and -- privilege goes with it.

great thing is not to wear it lightly. I am the person I am and

it has been a part of my life because it has given me an interest

and a connection with history which I love. I have always been

interested in history and politics and so there is an inspiration

there and learning there and it is not only my grandfather but more

immediately my mother who was his daughter he is a very successful

writer and she knew him very well. My father was a politician as well

but at the end of the day, in life no amount of distinguished

forebears makes up for weather you are able to meet your own way.

is why I ask about the burden of expectation because this is a

family that achieves? My brothers and sisters have all in their own

areas been high achievers and done incredibly well and I am tagging

along behind. I wonder about the extent to which you were a rebel

because you did Eton and Oxford and many became a DJ in a nightclub. It

was that rebellion or a good business opportunity? I think I

have always had a desire to do things in a slightly unconventional

way. Whether it has been being the youngest. A was probably a mistake

and many people reckon that. Certainly my parents had four

children very close together and then I turned up. But I have always

had the desire for the unconventional. He it is absolutely

true that when I went to university, partly because I wanted to make

money and I was interested in business. A hard decision for me

was come the end of university and all my friends went off to become

bankers, it was the early Eighties and the beginning of the Big Bang

and that was where the big salaries wear and where the bigger

opportunities where. Nobody was much interested in industry. I just

wanted to make things, I was really interested in electronics and

merging and computing. Which is quite eccentric or rebellious?

was what interested me and I get incredibly enthusiastic about

things and I don't regret it for a second, albeit it meant for many

years I've learned a lot less than my contemporaries. They were going

around driving fast cars and I was still working on the shop floor or

managing a sales force and working for a company but I don't regret a

moment of that. I have had so much fun doing it and so much

opportunity working in the industrial side rather than in the

financial services but it was regarded by many friends and

contemporaries, but never by my family. My family were completely

supportive. They did not regarded as eccentric at all. He went into

the company, them and were picked up people like you. How important

was it to be mentored and what did you learn from that? He remains to

this day, I have a photograph of him on my table. He was a

completely inspiring figure. I was hugely lucky that he would

occasionally bring me up and beat me up down the telephone for my

sins and mentoring is not quite the word, Mourne string would be more

like it! He was tough on his people. Very often tough on me. But I

learnt an enormous amount and what he gave me was an opportunity at a

very young age to run the business. I ran my first business as a

managing director aged 26 and that was a business with 600 people and

that doesn't seem to happen any more. I was incredibly fortunate

that I fell in with him and that for some unknown reason, he took a

shine to me and was prepared to promote me. After he left, you were

sacked and then 10 years ago you were sacked from the software

company. A I regularly get sacked, I think I have been sacked 2.5

times. You describe this process as character-building? I think it is

character-building. First of all, it is humbling will stop secondly,

it makes you value the jobs that you have. Thirdly, I thinking if

you have been, as I walls, which was out of work for a year, and

getting increasingly desperate about it, I hope it makes you more

empathetic with people who are or who have been in the same position.

I think it is part of life's rich experience. It is a matter of ups

and downs. I am a permanent optimist so I didn't admit it get

me down to much but inwardly at night, and was really worried.

it comes to the euphemism is, letting people go. As a result of

what you have been through, do you treat them differently? I hope so.

I hope, it doesn't happen very often because we are a fast-growing

company and we have gone from employing 1500 people to over 6000

people but when it does happen, I don't know whether it makes a

difference to them or not. Probably when it does happen, me saying to

them, by the way it happened to me and it could produce great

opportunities. I suspect they had Let us look at energy markets in

general. You have been quite outspoken about some gaps in

capacity that are coming Roberson. Where do you think the most

significant gaps are emerging? think the UK has a particular

difficulty coming down the road because there was a political

fashion a few years ago to signing up willy-nilly for carbon reduction

targets on a very short timescale. I have no problem at all with

carbon reduction targets. I have no problem with them being legally

binding. I do have a problem when people put in place carbon

reduction targets which because they are so short term mean that

the British economy is going to have to go, and the infrastructure,

is going to have to be turned over at a dramatic rate to meet those

targets. It will cost the consumers of electricity a great deal of

money. I think it is unnecessary. We have retired to a lot of

stations, we have gone for renewables and it will cost

consumers and businesses extra money they did not need to spend.

It is reckoned it more cost �200 billion to the Orient take UK

electricity. Will it happen? It is a big question. It has to be paid

for by the international capital markets and a pink one of the

dangers of policy makers in the UK is if we think it can happen, it

probably will. It is not only asked those who have to spend that amount

of money. It is the Germans, the Americans, the Italians, the

Indians, the French. A massive amount of money will have to go

into new power infrastructure. the big worry is the money?

money and the pricing. I think that investors will save, or we could

put our money into France for the UK or America. There will be a lot

of people competing for that money. I am concerned. I am not been

alarmist -- being alarmist, but we will have a higher energy bills in

years to come. Do you think the targets had been too ambitious? You

can see there is a need for climate change to be addressed. Other

targets on renewable energy to ambitious? Should they be

revisited? You have said that we need to to move on -- need to move

on. I have no problem would be targets for carbon reduction. The

problem I do have is people setting those targets. They have nothing to

do with the implementation of them. It is easy language, it's easy

votes. It makes politicians feel got to talk about massive green

projects, but at the end of the day, these things raise billions of

Pounds -- cost of billions of pounds and ultimately, it will be

the consumer that pays for it. People have underestimated how

difficult it will be to get the level of investment in the

timescale that has been recommended. There is a large gap and you have

said that only 20 % of what needs to be spent his been spent.

Electricity brings good things to people's lives. It brings them

light so that they can read at night and study. Their hours of

study in school are not just dependent on light. It brings them

hospitals, transport, knowledge, the ability to trade with each

other and to create income and create wealth. If the electricity

is not there, they cannot increase their standard of living.

expectation is in development for emerging economies that they will

have to meet the same sort of renewable targets as developed

nations are meeting. Is that achievable using Hydro and solar

power? Well, this is the point where I find it difficult to remain

quiet. I think the hypocrisy of the rich countries in a lot of their

dealings with developing countries is very damaging and it upsets me a

lot to see countries who have massively higher CO2 emissions

turning round to poor countries who have a large amount of electricity

coming from renewables and telling them what choices they can have. To

bring electricity to the 1.3 billion people who currently do not

have access to it will add A1 percentage point to global CO2

emissions. And yet we are turning round to these countries and saint,

you cannot use the Col you have in your country. You must build more

expensive energy. Listening to your concerns about the gaps opening up

in developing economies, and the gaps opening up in developed

economies, it must be fantastic news for Aggreko because you are

ideally placed to plug the gaps and make a lot of money. I have never

had a moment's doubt that Aggreko future -- Aggreko's feature is set

fair. There are countries who need power were quickly and for the time

that they don't have it, there are children dying, people not been

educated properly, their economies is not been developed. I don't

think that that argument is inconsistent with Aggreko been part

of that solution. -- being part. You have been chief executive of

Aggreko for nine years, which is a relatively long time for a chief

executive at a FTSE company. How long do you think you will continue

their? I love this company. I've always liked the companys I've

worked for, but there will come a point when I have and fired again.

You set aside your political aspirations in your twenties. We

pick them up again? In terms have been an elected politician, I think

this has now become a young man's game. You have to make a decision

to do that when you are very young. I would love at some stage in my