GEORGE NEGUS: Ever considered politics yourself?

SIR RICHARD BRANSON: I haven't because I left school at 15 and I feel going back into the political system would be a bit like going back to school, and I run away from it. But having said that, there are areas of what I do today which are quite political. Obviously, the Elders, in particular, is very political.

GEORGE NEGUS: So you would expect then the Elders would get involved in areas where you've not really trodden before, like the Middle East, and like Iran, Iraq, etc?

SIR RICHARD BRANSON: Yes, I mean, the Elders were formed about a year ago. Nelson Mandela chose the first 12 elders, and the idea was to find the 12 most respected people in the world, who were above ego, maybe in the last 10 years of their life, who had tremendous moral authority, who had the respect of the world, who could take on intractable problems that were not being dealt with by other people. For instance, two of the Elders went to Kenya last month, Kofi Annan and Graca Machel, Nelson Mandela's wife, to try to resolve a really nasty conflict between the opposition party and the ruling party. And they managed to knock heads together and sort that problem out. They're now looking at taking on a far bigger issue, which is the Middle East, because the Middle East is not resolved. There's just so much fall-out from it, and it's got to be resolved one day. I come from a country where Northern Ireland looked like it was never going to be resolved and it has been resolved. And so Kofi Annan is one of the elders and Mary Robinson, and President Carter are three of the Elders going to spend a lot of time and energy trying to address that.

GEORGE NEGUS: So you've become not a politician but a political facilitator.

SIR RICHARD BRANSON: Yes, you know, I'm very much behind the scenes on the Elders. It was an idea that Peter Gabriel and myself had. We've got a great team of people behind the Elders to make sure they can act completely independently and they can hopefully do good works. Before the Iraqi war I was trying to get Mandela to go and persuade Saddam Hussein to step down and go and live in Libya, and the plane was due to go to Iraq the same day the bombing started, so it never actually took place.

GEORGE NEGUS: Is that right? We'll never know what would have happened had people bothered to sit down and talk to him or try.

SIR RICHARD BRANSON: We will never know, but there are other situations in the world. Idi Amin, for instance, in Uganda, Elders went and persuaded him to go and live in Saudi Arabia for the rest of his life and Uganda has become a good democratic country since then, so it's important people talk.