................................................................................ ON THE RECORD RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 16.3.97
................................................................................ JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good afternoon. Any day now Mr Major will announce the date of the election. So as the real battle is about to be joined, we shall be talking to the leading strategists for the Tory and Labour Parties - Brian Mawhinney and Donald Dewar. Will Dr Mawhinney confirm that Mr Major wants a televised debate? The most vicious electoral combat will be in the marginal seats and we'll be reporting on how all the parties are preparing their troops to go over the top. That's after the news read by Moira Stuart. NEWS HUMPHRYS: Well the phoney war is all but over - and we are about to enter the final stages of this long campaign to decide who will govern Britain for the next five years. We shall be reporting from the front line today - from the marginal seats where the battle will be decided. And I'll be talking to Donald Dewar - the man Labour is relying on to marshall their forces and who will play a prominent role in a Labour Government. But first the Conservative campaign. It is not going well - yet another poll this morning suggests Labour's lead is still increasing. So now, it's being reported the Party has decided to play its trump card - John Major. He will do what no other Prime Minister in Britain's history has done - and face his challenger on live television. A mark of his courage - or his desperation? Earlier this morning I spoke to the Chairman of the Tory Party - Brian Mawhinney and I began by asking him if Mr Major does want that televised debate. BRIAN MAWHINNEY MP: Yes, he's keen to do so and confident about the possibilities. We think that it's right that there should be a series of debates - at least two - we would want them to be prime ministerial debates and thirdly, we would want them to include rigorous cross-examination, including Mr Blair talking to Mr Major and Mr Blair talking to Mr Major. HUMPHRYS: Alright, let's take one of those at a time if I may. At least two, so you would be happy for there to be more than that. MAWHINNEY: At least two. One of the things that I recognise, John, is that others will have views and the broadcasters will have views, so I'm not trying to be too prescriptive, but I'm setting out the sort of ideas that we have and that we would want to see put into play and then we will discuss around those. HUMPHRYS: You want take it, I think, as red, that all the main broadcasters will want to have the debate, so might you give one to each of the main broadcasters. Is that a possibility? MAWHINNEY: Well, we've set out what we're looking for. We're looking for debates because it fits into the overall campaign ideas. You know that the Prime Minister has said he's going to be the man in the middle of the crowd, so he will be taking the message directly to the people on the streets. Secondly, he'll be in studios like this, being cross-examined rigorously by people like you and others. And we see the debates as the third part of that strategy so that people will be able to, not only hear rigorous cross-examination of the prime ministerial candidates if you will but also hear them relating to each other. HUMPHRYS: When it's likely to begin? - When are they likely to begin the series of debates? MAWHINNEY: Clearly that's a matter again for discussion with the broadcasters. We've, like the other parties, had preliminary messages and letters from I think all of the main television broadcasters and indeed some independents saying that they would be interested. This week we will now start to have serious discussions with them about how we may carry this forward. And I'm assuming, clearly, that we will carry it forward because Mr Blair has been indicating through his aides that he's interested in having a debate, certainly Mr Prescott and Mr Mandleson have been going around saying let's have a debate, so let's get on with the planning. HUMPHRYS: So when would he like them to begin, as far as you're concerned? MAWHINNEY: Clearly they will be as an integral part of the campaign and during the course of it, I would imagine, somewhere in the middle of it, but that's to be discussed with the broadcasters and they will presumably have scheduling issues that they will want to bring to the attention of the parties. HUMPHRYS: Now you talk about them as being prime ministerial debates. What does that mean? MAWHINNEY: Well it means that, excuse me, it means that the country faces a choice of two futures and there's a Conservative future of: stability, sustainable development, economic progress. There is a future under an alternative Labour Government, which we believe, would be a leap into the unknown, a risk for people to take. So there's a clear choice emerging. There are only two potential Prime Ministers, so it's right that the people who have to make that choice should have the opportunity to look at and listen to the two leaders of the parties, one of whom would be Prime Minister after the election. Now, I recognise, not only the legal framework but that there are others who will want to hear from Mr Ashdown, I accept that point and we will have to find a way through but in terms of the debates, we're talking about, in our view prime ministerial debates. HUMPHRYS: You can be absolutely certain of course that Mr Ashdown will say - is already saying apparently - I am not going to be excluded from this process and you can understand why he says that. So, are you, you have set your face entirely against, as it were a three-handed debate, that's Mr Ashdown, Mr Blair and Mr Major - have you, you've set your face against that entirely. MAWHINNEY: We think that there are two potential Prime Ministers and people should have the opportunity to hear and listen to those two men being rigorously cross-examined and discussing the issues between themselves because one or other of them will be Prime Minister at the end of the General Election. Mr Ashdown won't and I'm not going to get into arguments about whether he is now so close to Mr Blair that there's almost a coalition and so on. I recognise that they have a view to express, that he has a legitimate view to express, I'm not trying to downgrade that but the issue here, seems to me, to be Prime Minister - choice of two futures. So I'm very confident that within the legal restraints the broadcasters will be able to cope. HUMPHRYS: Right, so there will be no three-hander. Might there, perhaps, be a separate debate between Mr Major and Mr Ashdown, because we can see that Mr Ashdown may even to go to court on this and say fairness requires this to happen. MAWHINNEY: Well frankly I'm not going to be drawn into legal speculation. HUMPHRYS: I'm talking about fairness here? MAWHINNEY: Well, the legal framework is for the braodcasters to determine, because the law applies to them. I entirely take the fairness point, indeed that's why I said that Mr Ashdown and the Liberal Democrats have a view to put forward, and I'm sure that the broadcasters can cope with that. HUMPHRYS: Alright, let's assume that we..... MAWHINNEY: Within the law, but we're talking about prime-ministerial candidates on behalf of their parties. HUMPHRYS: Alright, but what if we, the broadcasters said to you: Look we're worried because the courts may well say this can't be allowed to happen - you cannot exclude one of the three main parties. The way around it, we say to you, is have separate debates including Mr Ashdown. Would you then say, we will do that, or would you risk losing the debates entirely rather than go down that road? MAWHINNEY: I think the broadcasters will be able to cope with the idea of Mr Major and Mr Blair debating on a number of occasions with each other, and still find ways adequately to represent the legitimate views of Mr Ashdown and the Liberal-Democrats. HUMPHRYS: So there is no way that Mr Major is going to debate Mr Ashdown on live television during this campaign? MAWHINNEY: No, we're talking, as far as the British people are concerned with a choice of two futures, not a choice of three futures, and a choice of two possible prime ministers, not a choice of three possible prime ministers. So that's the issue, which I think the people want to hear, to see, to have the opporotunity themselves to judge from the mouths of the two men, one of whom will be leader of this country after the General Election. I do not denigrate Mr Ashdown, I'm not being rude or underhand when I say that he doesn't believe he's going to be prime minister, and nobody else believes he's going to be prime minister, so the broadcasters will have to find a legitimate way to allow his views to be covered within the legal framework which is a matter for the broadcasters not for us. But we see this very clearly as Mr Major and Mr Blair being rigorously cross-examined, and each other, and I think a lot of people will look forward to it, because they will have noticed for example, that Mr Major makes himself available regularly for rigorous examination in studios. You, yourself did and excellent interview with him sometime ago. John Paxman HUMPHRYS: Jeremy. MAWHINNEY: Jeremy Paxman did an interview with him not so long ago, he did a live telephone - phone in. We don't see as much of Mr Blair opening himself up to this sort of rigorous examination, indeed what - probably a couple of years since he was on this programme. So people will want to know why there is this reluctance on Mr Blair's part to go through the normal democratic processes that Mr Major has already undertaken, will do a lot more of during the election, and I'm sure you and your colleagues will look forward to the opportunity both in studios and in the debates, to have that rigorous cross-examination. HUMPHYRS: Indeed. I'll come back to that in just a second, but just to clear up one small point, but they will not think it small. The Nationalists - you've said there is no way you'll debate Mr Ashdown - clearly that applies to the Nationalist leaders as well? MAWHINNEY: Yes, we're talking about a prime ministerial. HUMPHRYS: Okay. Now, the debate itself. You want there to be a dual as I understand it then, between Mr Blair and Mr Major. You don't want one of these set-piece formulae things where a panel of the great and the good, or whoever they happen to be - or indeed the studio audience asks questions through the chairman, and it's all strictly controlled and all that. You want them to have a go at each other? MAWHINNEY: I think that there is a role for commentators or interviewers to be part of the examination process - the cross-examination process, but I think that there is a role also for Mr Major saying to Mr Blair, "Can you explain this", or "What does that mean?" and Mr Blair having a similar opportunity for the Prime Minister. So I look for rigorous cross-examination.. HUMPHRYS: Of each other by each other. MAWHINNEY: .. but part of it would be of each other by each other. HUMPHRYS: So it could be quite a punch up couldn't it? MAWHINNEY: Well, I don't believe so, and I don't think most people out there believe so. The truth is that both of them are respected senior politicians, and I'm sure they will behave themselves accordingly. HUMPHRYS: Studio audience? Do you like the idea of having a live audience? MAWHINNEY: Those are the sort of things, frankly that broadcasters will have... HUMPHRYS: But you'll have a view on that as well won't you? MAWHINNEY: Yes, depending on how the programme was to be structured there is the possibility of an audience, but I think that what we're talking about is rigorous cross-examination and so that suggests to me interviewers and the backward and forwards between the two politicians. HUMPHRYS: Why has the Prime Minister, you together, made this decision now? MAWHINNEY: He has been keen for a very long time, as you know, to take the message to the people directly. We did some of that at the Party Conference. We have been doing it ever since. He has been making himself available regularly to do interviews. HUMPHRYS: No, but this has never been done before. Never in our history has a Prime Minister said I am prepared to face the Leader of the Opposition in this way. Isn't it because you are now at the stage where you're desperate, putting it bluntly? MAWHINNEY: No, I'm not. No, we're not. And, no, that's not the reason. The strategy has been I think, fairly clear for some time. There's a lot of evidence that we have a view, that we're going to take the message directly to the people. The Prime Minister is very good at it, people like it. They like to meet him, they like to hear him directly. I was hugely impressed by the warm response that he got walking around the streets of Bath yesterday. So, what he's going to do, he's going to say: yes, I'll be in your neighbourhood, talking to you directly. Yes, I'll be in the studios saying to the very professional interviewers on the broadcasting stations, saying: okay, let's have a discussion and the third pillar of that is to say: alright, there is a choice of two futures. We have said that this is a hugely significant Election. So, let's carry forward that thought and allow the public to see the two potential Prime Ministers talking to each other and being cross-examined. HUMPHRYS: But, Mr Major himself has said in the past that he didn't want to create - and, I quote - a Presidential atmosphere. That is precisely what he is now going to be doing, isn't it? MAWHINNEY: No, I don't think so because- HUMPHRYS: What two leaders. You said a Prime Ministerial confrontation. I mean, that's precisely what's going to happen. MAWHINNEY: Not confrontational. Prime Ministerial debates. HUMPHRYS: Fine. MAWHINNEY: But what they will be talking about are the policies that will inform the choice between two futures. HUMPHRYS: Indeed, but a forum we've never had before. MAWHINNEY: Everything is a first, John. We've managed to get inflation down for soo low for so long that you could say it's a John Major first. We've now got so much investment coming into this country from around the world that you could say that's a first. Things have to have a first and it feels right in terms of the strategy that we're adopting and decided quite some time ago to adopt that Mr Major and Mr Blair should talk to each other. And, I think, it's worth also pointing out that we're not interested in sound bites. You've heard him say that repeatedly. I'm not interested in a debate that's about sound bites. And I've made clear to you again today we're not interested in that sort of debate. HUMPHRYS: Is it going to be a long debate - fifty minutes, an hour and hour and a half? MAWHINNEY: Well, all of those have got to be discussed with the broadcasters. You wouldn't expect me to try to make a pre-emptive bid. HUMPHRYS: Right. MAWHINNEY: But, I do expect them to take place. I do expect Mr Blair to be there and I expect that there will be a huge viewing and listening audience. HUMPHRYS I think, that's entirely possible. What about the date of the Election because, presumably, it's coming very close now or, at least, the announcement is coming very close since you've announced this? MAWHINNEY: Well, I think, the announcement - I expect the annoucement to be made soon but you know there's a way, an appropriate and proper way for these things to be done and the Prime Minister will handle that and make the announcement in due course. HUMPHRYS: In the coming week, perhaps? MAWHINNEY: Well, as I said, I expect that it will be announced soon. But, there is a proper way for doing it. It's down to the Prime Minister. He'll decide and he'll announce. HUMPHRYS: If I were to assume in the coming week I may not be a million miles wrong? MAWHINNEY: The Prime Minister will let us know, John. HUMPHRYS: You say that you're not - you're not desperate but you are in difficulty. You conceded as much in your speech in Bath. It was a very - it was very candid, it was a very realistic speech. How far behind do you think you are, at this stage? MAWHINNEY: Oh, I'm not in the business of speculating. I'm in the business of affirming. First of all that I think we are behind at the moment. Conventional wisdom has us behind and I believe very strongly, without hesitation, that on Election Day we'll be ahead. HUMPHRYS: Can I suggest to you a couple of reasons why that may not the outcome and one of them is that you're having enormous difficulty getting your message across and there are a number of reasons for that. One of which is that in spite of all the pleas from the Prime Minister down, the party is still snapping at each others' heels, at its throats indeed, squabbling and your main pitch to the voters is a confused one partly because of that. You cannot sort it out. MAWHINNEY: I think that the message is quite clear. I think the message is that here is a Government who took tough decisions coming out of the recession. They were the right decisions, though they were politically damaging at the time. The people now see them to be right, the economy is in better shape than anybody can remember, jobs being created, unemployment falling. We're talking about investment, we're talking about a better quality of life, a better standard of living. And people believe that they've worked hard to achieve that, they deserve credit for it and they can see that being sustained. What I do accept is that after eighteen years, if you stop people on the street and say is it time for a change, there's a sort of reaction: yes time for a change. But if you then get them to focus on the issues: what is it you would want to change? and do you think what's on offer from Labour would be a change for the better, you find them moving very quickly and that's the challenge we've got. HUMPHRYS: Yes, but the problem is that when you then tell them what's on offer, they end up being confused. Let's look at your new slogan: "You can only be sure with the Conservatives". The word is sure. Now, that's a daft slogan in a sense isn't it because on the one hand you're saying: we can..you can rest assured that everything is going to be fine with us because there's this stability and we build on the kinds of successes we've had. And yet at the same time you're delivering a whole raft of new policies over the last few weeks, we've seen them coming out one week after another on all sorts of things which all seem very radical, and which are capable...they may be sound policies, I'm not disputing the policies for the moment at all. But, they are capable of being interpreted in all sorts of different ways and they leave people very unsure, very unsure indeed because it sounds terribly radical, confusion there you see. MAWHINNEY: I don't accept that for a moment and if you would permit me, had we not demonstrated that there was a continuing stream of new ideas to deal with a changing world, then your question would have been:
you're run out of ideas why on earth should the people vote for you. HUMPHRYS: Depends what the ideas are of course, doesn't it. It depends when they're produced but to produce something a few weeks before the election as radical as you've been doing, allowing people to think, for instance, and this may well be entirely wrong, but allowing them to go: Lord, the pension's going to go, my council..my OAP council home's going to be sold off to somebody privately, I'm going to have to take out an insurance if I need residential care. Allowing people to think that..all of which may be cleared up eventually certainly, possibly, but, in the meantime as you come up to this Election, they're thinking: what on earth is going on here, it's all a bit worrying, a bit puzzling. Not the assurance that they want from you. MAWHINNEY: But you even posing that question cause at least some people out there to say, that's not what I thought the Tories were about, is that what they are about? HUMPHRYS: I'm merely posing what other people have posed. MAWHINNEY: But it's not of course. What we're recognising is that for young people entering the world of work there are opportunities to build a pension for them which will be far better and far bigger than they would get otherwise and with a state guarantee. You talk about old peoples homes, the truth is that an increasing number of elderly people in this country live in privately run homes. There is a view, which we have, that on the whole, the local authorities ought to be making sure that facilities are available but not necessarily providing them. That happens from one end of the country to the other, at the moment. So what we are saying is that this is a Government, even after eighteen years, that still has ideas based in Conservative philosophy, not in centralised state control, but in Conservative philosophy that can address the developing issues right through into the next century. But building on the success, the achievement in terms of the economy and you heard the Prime Minister yesterday saying, having now got the economy in sustainable form, in a way that is benefitting everybody, we now need to ensure that the have-nots become the haves in a much broader sense than has been possible over the last few years. HUMPHRYS: And it may well be, as I say, that you will get all of those messages across eventually. But you have a very few weeks to go before the Election and you do see the contradiction here don't you. The problem that you are offering reassurance - you can only be sure with the Conservatives - but at the same time offering things that cause people to think, by their very nature, these are radical policies and cause people to think I'm not quite sure what that's about. It takes a while, even with the most well-informed people for them to understand quite how a policy is going to work. And these are complicated issues that we're discussing. MAWHINNEY: That's a very fair point and yes we will keep on explaining and promoting those new ideas built on the success and achievement. You've said you can only be sure and that's right. HUMPHRYS: You said that. MAWHINNEY: Yes. But you can only be sure so there are two words that need to be brought to people's attention. Not only that they can have the sense of sureness, stability, sustainably building on what we have achieved. But the contrast between that and the leap into the unknown, the huge risk in voting for a party which has been consistently wrong right through the seventies and the eighties and the nineties and is now turning to the British people and saying: having been wrong all of those years we now want you to know we recognise we've been wrong. HUMPHRYS: But you see I was offering that as an example of a confused message. On the one hand you can be sure, on the other hand, we're very radical. And when it comes to the Labour Party there seems to be some confusion as well because you say they're copying all of our ideas but New Labour, New Danger. Well if they've copied...as you've just said, they used to have different policies they now have policies that in many respects, are very similar to yours. So it can't be both can it? It can't be both grandmother's footsteps as I think Mr Major put it and New Labour, New Danger. There's another contradiction here. MAWHINNEY: On the contrary, John. Let's be quite clear. Our tax and spending plans are published for the next three years. They're all there, they're all set out. HUMPHRYS: The Labour Party's bought them. MAWHINNEY: If Mr Brown hadn't been chicken and had turned up here today so that you could interview him, after you'd interviewed me, as was the plan, you could have asked him how he was going to find the twelve thousand million pounds in the first two years of our spending plans that he can't cover or the thirty thousand million pounds through the lifetime of a five-year Parliament. So, don't let's have a conversation that there's no difference between the two Parties on spending. Everybody out there knows that the Labour instinct is to spend money and if they're in doubt, they look at Labour-controlled Local Authorities up and down the country and they see that instinct put into play by new Labour, day in and day out. And out there, people know that a Labour Government means more spending, which means more taxes, which means higher interest rates, which means higher mortgages and incidentally, if Mr Brown had had the guts to come, you could have asked him what was going to be in his new Budget that he promises as an emergency should he win - God Forbid. That's not the Budget, John, that's going to pull taxes down. That's a Budget that's going to put taxes up. HUMPHRYS: We're going to be talking to Donald Dewar immediately after this interview. So, perhaps, some of those questions will be dealt with then. But the point I'm putting to you is that your message is a very confused one. There has to be something that explains the massive gap in the opinion polls, the fact that you lost Wirral South and so on and on. The fact that you, by your own omission, are behind in this race. MAWHINNEY: And I addressed it, as I said, head on on Friday in Bath and let me repeat again. I think, that if you go out onto the street and say to people after eighteen years is it time for a change they say: yes. If you then get them to focus on the issues they are very quickly saying: well, what is it we do want to change? And would a change be for the better. That's the challenge. I accept it. That's the challenge, that's the fight over the next weeks. HUMPHRYS: You describe it as a challenge. Isn't the reality that many, if not most, in your Party have actually given up and conceded the race is lost and they're looking forward to the future in another direction now? MAWHINNEY: Absolutely not. You should have been at Bath on Friday and Saturday. That would have given you the answer to the question. HUMPHRYS: I've talked to some who were and they say it was a bit of a wake. MAWHINNEY: On the contrary, it was a very enthusiastic, very positive affirmation by the core of the voluntary party who were saying whenever you announce the date, John, our sleeves are already rolled up - we're ready to go. HUMPHRYS: How many seats are you going to win by? MAWHINNEY: We will win. HUMPHRYS: The Deputy Prime Minister says sixty rising. MAWHINNEY: We will win. When I took this job I said I would only make one prediction in all of the time I had it, that was that we would win the General Election. I am in no doubt about that at all. HUMPHRYS: Brian Mawhinney, thank you very much, indeed. MAWHINNEY: Thank you.