Labour: 'capacity to govern lost'

The Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague says 'the best thing they could do is call a general election'.

William Hague

HUW EDWARDS: ... Let's not forget of course it wasn't too long ago that the Tories seemed to be forging links with the McCain camp, the Republicans.

They even invited him to be a guest at their party conference.

So what's changed William Hague?

Good morning to you.

WILLIAM HAGUE: Good morning. Nothing has changed. It's ..

HUW EDWARDS: Well you've gone off McCain and you're now on Obama.

WILLIAM HAGUE: No, no, no, no. We, it's our job to be able to work with whoever becomes president of the United States.

Whoever's in government in Britain has to be able to do that. And I'm glad to say that we have and David Cameron in particular has an excellent personal rapport - it was an instant thing really yesterday - with Senator Obama. But he already has that with Senator McCain.

And I've tried particularly over the last couple of years as Shadow Foreign Secretary in any case to broaden our political relationship so that it's with political America, it's not just Conservative talking to Republicans, Labour people talking to Democrats. We need to know them across the board and so that's what we're doing.

HUW EDWARDS: Lots of viewers will be fascinated by you know how he came across in private. What did you make of him?

WILLIAM HAGUE: Oh well he's obviously a highly intelligent and thoughtful man. He looks you directly in the eye.

He has a sort of relaxed intensity about him if I can put it that way. He talked a lot about his, the visit he's just had around, for the last ten days to Iraq and Afghanistan. H

e's very conscious of the British role for instance in Afghanistan and of the contribution made by British troops of the very difficult conditions they're, they're working in and fighting in, and of the casualties that have been taken there.

So we were pleased to see that he had that consciousness of Britain's role and the huge contribution made there.

And he, yeah he comes across as an extremely intelligent man. So does John McCain. I'm not drifting into being partisan. We're not ..

HUW EDWARDS: Understood.

WILLIAM HAGUE: .. telling the Americans how to vote in their ..

HUW EDWARDS: Understood.

WILLIAM HAGUE: .. election.

HUW EDWARDS: Understood. I'm just wondering how comfortable you are with some of his policy positions.

Greg Craig confirmed to me yesterday very clearly that that commitment to withdraw American combat troops within sixteen months from Iraq still stands. Are you comfortable with that?

WILLIAM HAGUE: We wouldn't have made a specific timetable, what Gordon Brown calls an artificial timetable. I don't think anybody in British politics would put it that way. But there has been some convergence here.

Because the Iraqi government of course now is much more self confident, has taken on much more of its own security. We all hope that they will be able to look after themselves in such a time by twenty ten.

It's highly likely that there won't be many British troops there by then. So I don't think there would be a conflict between London and Washington over that. Everyone would have to work with that timetable.

HUW EDWARDS: But you know politely you're saying the timetable in your view is unwise, that kind of rigid timetable?

WILLIAM HAGUE: We wouldn't have put a rigid timetable to it. But given the way events are going there is some convergence here between Senator McCain's policies, Senator Obama's policies.

Whether it would amount to a practical difference in the end is not clear. And of course similarly on Afghanistan both of them place emphasis on a renewed American momentum in Afghanistan.

Both of them very worried about that there isn't yet a functioning state in Afghanistan that can carry out its business in a non-corrupt and non-wasteful way.

HUW EDWARDS: Mr Craig yesterday was very reluctant to echo the, the kind of talk we've had in Britain from some senior military figures which is that there'll need to be some kind of presence there for, military presence there for thirty years maybe, a very long period.

He said basically I'm not going into figures but I agree it's a very, very long commitment. Are you happy to be sharing that commitment for as long as it takes?

WILLIAM HAGUE: We think it's a long commitment although similarly we wouldn't put a timetable on it. Now the problems of Afghanistan are not going to be sorted out in the next six months.

And it's been a clear lesson that you can't just drop democracy out of an aeroplane at thirty thousand feet. You've got to work a long time with the people on the ground building the institutions. And they need to do much better in Afghanistan. Our soldiers win every tactical battle but we're not yet winning the war.

The strategy over all is not being successful. And that is, David Cameron said to Barack Obama, this is we think our number one foreign policy problem and we are, if and when we are elected to office in this country, and Senator Obama pretty much agreed with that.

HUW EDWARDS: There's been a lot of talk about how sure footed he is in terms of his international experience, his international outlook. Got into a spot of bother in the Middle East when he said "I'd like Jerusalem to remain the undivided capital of Israel" - went back and then corrected himself.

Is there a sense that you know this is a man who has very, very little experience on the world stage and that is compared to McCain a very big disadvantage?

WILLIAM HAGUE: Well again I, you're asking me to drift into taking sides really in American presidential election. Both of these candidates are highly intelligent men, both inspiring candidates.

I think it has the chance to be an uplifting election in America, uplifting for the rest of the world, because they both offer immense personal experience and they offer change as well to America. And their, okay their experiences differ.

But he strikes me, both of them strike me as sufficiently intelligent people, that they're able to learn very, very quickly.

HUW EDWARDS: Just a final point on Obama before moving on to domestic politics if I may, clearly lots of viewers would expect you to have no problem saying you know I'm Conservative and therefore my soul-mate would be a Republican in the States.

What is the problem with saying yes if there was a choice I would prefer to have McCain in the Whitehouse simply because he is somebody who's politically more allied to us than Obama would be? Where's the issue here?

WILLIAM HAGUE: Well the Republicans are our sister party. But as I say we have a relationship with political America as a whole. There will be Conservatives at the Republican Convention. There will be Conservative MPs and officials going to the ..

HUW EDWARDS: Yeah.

WILLIAM HAGUE: .. Democrat Convention. And so the fact we have to work with whoever wins in America suggests we don't actually take sides in a partisan way.

And I'm not sure in any case that an American voter sitting in the middle of Iowa is going to be influenced by the views of British politicians on who to vote for. So it would be a pretty futile thing in any case.

HUW EDWARDS: Okay. Well let's hope this is less futile. Because if you look at all the papers today and look at the latest poll figures, not least in the marginals according to the Sunday Telegraph.

Twenty four percent lead there for the Tories or at least Labour behind by twenty four percent in the marginals. So how soon are you expecting to be in government?

WILLIAM HAGUE: We take nothing for granted. Even in this situation we are not complacent. But we would like there to be a general election straight away. This is a government that has clearly lost the capacity to govern.

It's now on its second great leadership crisis in the last eighteen months. So even they themselves don't believe that they are conducting the government of the country properly.

And I think it's increasingly losing the authority to govern. It's now being defeated in elections in every part of the country. And I think they have come to the point where the best thing they could do is call a general election and let a proper government take charge.

HUW EDWARDS: But the worst thing they could do for you would be to choose a new leader who would be more popular than Gordon Brown.

WILLIAM HAGUE: Well we're happy to take any of them on. There is no evidence actually that any particular individual would be a lot more popular than Gordon Brown. After all Brown was meant to be a lot more popular than Tony Blair.

This is not just a leadership crisis. The crisis over Gordon Brown that the Labour Party's now convulsed with despite Harriet Harman's unwillingness to admit that in your interview with her is because they have failed as a government. It's not that they'd been doing dramatically differently well if they had somebody different in charge.

This is a comprehensively failed government. And going into that economic downturn that Harriet Harman was take, talking about, they have given us the largest budget deficit in Europe. They didn't fix the roof when the sun was shining. And now everybody can see that. And that's why the country wants rid of them.

HUW EDWARDS: A final point. No one foresaw this economic crunch that we're going through now. No one did. At least I haven't read anybody who foresaw that a long time before it happened. So they can't be held responsible for all of that can they?

WILLIAM HAGUE: Well other countries during the good times have sorted out their structural budgetary problems. So you have seen actually the balance between tax and spending put right in so many other European countries.

But in Britain, Gordon Brown decided he was just going to spend everything that was available, wasting a huge amount of money in the process, taxing people to the hilt.

Their patience has now snapped. But it's snapped with the government as a whole, not just with Gordon Brown. And that's what they need to realise.

HUW EDWARDS: William Hague thanks for coming in.

WILLIAM HAGUE: Thank you.

HUW EDWARDS: Good to talk to you.

INTERVIEW ENDS

Please note "The Andrew Marr Show" must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.

NB: This transcript was typed from a recording and not copied from an original script.

Because of the possibility of mis-hearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, the BBC cannot vouch for its accuracy

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