............................................................................... ON THE RECORD RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC-1 DATE: 10.10.93 ............................................................................... JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good afternoon and Welcome to On The Record. We know what the Conservative Party thought of Michael Heseltine this week; they cheered him to the echo when he strode on to the platform at Blackpool. But what does Michael Heseltine think of the party and of the direction it has now taken. In today's programme he gives us an exclusive interview - the first since his heart attack four months ago. NEWS But first, Michael Heseltine. He has been a force in British politics for a third of a century - but for how much longer? We've heard nothing from him for the past four months, since that heart attack in Italy... though the rumours have told us a great deal. He's still far from well... he might need a heart by-pass ... he's going to have to retire from politics. At the very least his influence over the party and British politics is at an end. Well, it didn't sound at all like any of that when I spoke to Mr. Heseltine near his home a couple of hours ago. I asked him first: How are you? MICHAEL HESELTINE MP: I'm well. Medically, as best as I understand what the doctors tell me, I'm fine to carry the responsibilities and strain of the Cabinet job that I had. But you've to do it slowly, take it a step at a time. It would be crazy to do a sort of dive in from the sort of recuperative process but one of the doctors had looked inside my heart. They put a local injection, a telescope upside. He said I'd got the arteries of a man of thirty or forty. Don't quarrel with him, don't quarrel with him. HUMPHRYS: So, what does that mean? No need for a by-pass? Because there was some sort of- HESELTINE: Oh, no, no. I just lost the tip of an artery - close down, finish. So, it wasn't close to the heart and, so, the arteries themselves are very good. But this tip, for reasons beyond my knowledge, has gone, so, there's nothing to be done about it and the last test I had the guy who conducted it said: You've already got the heart of an average sixty year old who hasn't had a heart attack - and, that, was very encouraging. HUMPHRYS: So, you're completely fit? HESELTINE: Medically, yes. But it takes time to recover from the shock and the experience and the unnerving. But, I've come a long way and, so, I'll go back next Wednesday to the Department and if people will bear with me and put up with it, I'll take it fairly slowly to start with. But, I daresay, there will come a time when he won't notice much difference. HUMPHRYS: What you say, the shock of it. What-what was it like? All of those of us who haven't had a heart attack live in fear of it, obviously, and think: God, what's it? HESELTINE: Yeah, well, I mean, we all. My father died of a heart attack and that was a long time ago. I think, it's very possible that he wouldn't have died under today's conditions. I had wonderful treatment in Italy. I was very close to a hospital with a wonderful cardiac unit where they had a professor who was one of the leading Italians in the subject. I was there within an hour so I couldn't be more grateful and appreciative. They're wonderful people, the Italians. Anyway, but the actual experience - one knew something was wrong. I was not frightened. I didn't think it was that wrong but I said to Ann: Look, I think, you'd better get a doctor.' HUMPHRYS: This was before it happened or when it happened? You didn't have sort of intimations that something was going wrong. HESELTINE: Well, you see, it's all hindsight. I think, in truth, we'd taken a weekend off, to go to Venice. There was a big art exhibition on and Ann wanted to see that and I wasn't feeling on top form.
And, looking back, I, perhaps, should have gone to a doctor then but you don't - you know. But, anyway, there it was and I had this pain - not acute, that's why I wasn't that worried. It didn't last that long and, from that moment, I got into hospital and I had no more trouble. But I mean, of course, they'd plugged me up with all sorts of things, with, of course, one disastrous consequence which - I mean: damn the British media, like all politicians do - one of the things they have to do is to get your uric acid - I think, it's called - content correct. And, so, they give you some medicine for that. A side effect of which can be that you can develop gout. And, so, the- HUMPHRYS: Ah, that explains it. HESELTINE: So, what everybody saw was not the fit, strapping Heseltine, which I wished to portray but this sort of tottering wreck. You know, hobbling to the ..copter. It was my foot which had been- had gout induced, nothing to do with the heart, at all. Anyway, sod's law, you know. That's politics. HUMPHRYS: But you did look truly awful in that picture that appeared in the newspapers. HESELTINE: Well, my real, real girlfriends wrote and said: Michael, you've got lovely legs! HUMPHRYS: (Laughter) But did you think you were going to die? I mean was it-? HESELTINE: No. No I didn't. I mean, I must be honest. I did not feel that frightened. It wasn't an acute pain that, I mean- I mean one of the things that one has to realise is that you can become a heart attack bore very easily. Everybody who has had any sort of tremor or experience, or much worse, they're all individual and it's no use me talking to you about my heart condition because you haven't got my heart. They're all individual and mine, I think, looking back, was a light experience and I mean,
as I've said, this telescope they shove up you - I mean, Chris Patten had the same thing - is local anaesthetic in the groin. Up goes the telescope, you're lying there, you know, and the doctor turned to me and said: 'Do you want to watch?' Do you want to watch! And, I said: 'Aargh!' you know. HUMPHRYS: Anything but. HESELTINE: Absolutely. But anyway, that's it. It's all now a few months ago. HUMPHRYS: Did it change your perspective on anything? On life, on politics, on what you're doing in the job? HESELTINE: I suppose. Well, if I tell you. I mean, I remember - ludicrous really - sort of thinking of what I would say at the Tory Party Conference while I was lying in that hospital in Venice and I actually made some notes, then. So, I mean, you know, I am a politician. And, you know, it's in the blood. I've been in the House of Commons now for about a quarter of a century - over a quarter of a century - most of it on the front bench and I like it. But the fact is that you know you do ask these questions, your family make you ask these questions, quite understandably. There are other things I could do. I am a manic gardener and that's what I've been doing. I could go back to commerce, although that side of my life is some way behind and it's always been very successfully done by my colleagues in the company that I started. So, you know, I've never had a sort of one way track about politics. Although I adore it and I've enjoyed it hugely - am enjoying it. HUMPHRYS: Ah, I was going to pick you up on that. You said: 'I have enjoyed it hugely'. HESELTINE: Hear, hear. No, no, no, no, no. HUMPHRYS: And, I was about to leap in and say: Ah, that means- HESELTINE: How kind. Well that's the value of a programme like this, you can correct. Otherwise, that'd be over the headlines: 'Heseltine says future is in the past' HUMPHRYS: Quite. Exactly, exactly. HESELTINE: -which is not exactly what I am saying. No, the fact is that I love politics. It's- and I've always wanted to be President of the Board of Trade. HUMPHRYS: But what about more ambition - further ambition now? HESELTINE: Well, that's a sort of wary question but all politicians- HUMPHRYS: But you'd expect me to ask it. HESELTINE: I know you're bound to ask it and you- I'm not going to give you any different answer I've ever given. My belief is that John Major will win the next Election. I helped to win the last one and I shall help to win the next one and, I think, that all this sort of chat about leadership challenges and all that, I think that's for the birds and I don't think we shall see it. Especially, I don't think so, after the very impressive speech he made on Friday. HUMPHRYS: But there is - we'll come to that in a moment, if we may - but there is something about you that is a bit different to other politicians. HESELTINE: Trouble, trouble (laughter). HUMPHRYS: Apart from that. Well, though, that's true - that's true - and you've had plenty of that. HESELTINE: Plenty of trouble. HUMPHRYS: And, yet you keep bouncing back or swinging back. I mean- HESELTINE: Yes. I wrote a book called "Where There's a Will". HUMPHRYS: Precisely. You resigned over-over Westland, you were defeated for the leadership, you've had your heart attack, you've been out of action for three months and, yet, when you talk to people, when the pollsters go out with their clip boards they say: who do you think is most likely - apart from the Prime Minister - to lead the Tory Party? And,
they say you - still. So, what is it about you? HESELTINE: Trouble. HUMPHRYS: It's got to be a bit more than that. Ambition? HESELTINE: Long hair, long hair. Tall, you know. Been around a long time. I've yet to answer what is it. Who knows? Who cares? You know, if I'm President of the Board of Trade, I'm a loyal member of John Major's Cabinet, I intend to go on doing that as long as he wants me. HUMPHRYS: And, the inevitable - come on, you'd expect me to ask this, too - if John Major fell under a privatised train, would your hat still be in the ring? Or, would you say: I've had it all now, I don't-? HESELTINE: Well, I mean-No, you never make these-
you can give every sort of evasive answer to these questions and they're all lies, you know. They may sound nice and they may deceive people but the truth is any politician that I know and respect, when it comes to the crunch, if they think they have a chance of preferment and, obviously, ultimate preferment, take it. Some of them do it sheepishly and with reluctance and say: It's never what I ever had in mind but they always do it. Others are honest about it - Ken Clarke - I like him, I trust him, I admire him. What does he say? He answers the question straight - just the way I've always answered it. HUMPHRYS: Which is to say: Yes, given another chance, I'd have a go for it. HESELTINE: No and I don't say that because what I always said is you cannot do what your friends will never let you do. That's the real test, you cannot - if you're in the House of Commons and a vacancy or something for this sort for a job, I mean you don't need to invent a hypothetical situation. Your friends are the ones who said "you're the guy who could do this" and if they don't say that, or if they positively say "you're not the guy" you're wasting your time. The only reason that you can make progress in that sort of situation is if there's a body of opinion that says that you should. HUMPHRYS: But somebody like you could always find friends to say "yes you ought to do......" HESELTINE: No, I don't agree with that. I do not agree with that at all. I mean there could..I think the House of Commons is now someway past in my life in the sense that I haven't been there since June. I have no idea about the mood. I have no idea what people will think. There may be large numbers....one journalist said to me in Blackpool and perhaps this says it all. He said "Michael, you're the only really popular person here this week". You see they've nothing to be frightened of anymore. HUMPHRYS: But they're wrong aren't they because you're saying I'm still around and... HESELTINE: I'm around, it doesn't mean to say I'm frightening. HUMPHRYS: And I haven't changed. HESELTINE: I've never been frightening, but people have misjudged me. HUMPHRYS: So you're not going to write your memoirs? HESELTINE: You know I'm unhappy about this memoir business. I mean they're self-serving aren't they and they're all to put the person's point of view and I find it, I mean I'm not going to be holier than thou about it all, I mean perhaps I myself might be tempted one day. But, the idea that someone is putting it all down, all those private conversations, all those tensions and it's all being recorded, not to present the historic truth but to present the truth as the person wants history to read it. That's what always happens, they're self-serving, self-pleading, self-justifying. Perhaps they're helpful to the historians because they can then put them all in a room, although I must say I...I mean one of the most fascinating pieces of politics I was ever involved in was when I had to defend Mrs Thatcher over the Belgrano incident and people were very kind about the quality of speech that I made that did it. I believed she was one hundred per cent right, I believed then and I believe now, I must make that absolutely clear. But, I had to get together in one room the admirals, the intelligence people, the civil servants, all the people who'd played a critical role in advising her, it was only six months before. They couldn't agree, I wonder what each of their memoirs would look like. HUMPHRYS: So what about Mrs Thatcher's memoirs? HESELTINE: Look, I did a deal with Mrs Thatcher in 1986 that I wouldn't open up many of these issues and if she sticks to the deal, I'll stick to the deal. HUMPHRYS: But, she hasn't. HESELTINE: As far as I'm concerned, personally, so far, she has. HUMPHRYS: What was the deal, then? HESELTINE: That I wouldn't pursue the issues of 1986 and I haven't. I've stood with the.. It's very simple. I left it to the Select Committees of the House of Commons. HUMPHRYS: But, we're talking about now, we're talking about Mrs Thatcher having written....a set of memoirs - critical of the Prime Minister while he's still in office. HESELTINE: Ah, she hasn't been critical of me. HUMPHRYS: No, but she's been critical of lots of other people. Well, we don't know for sure yet about what she said about you. HESELTINE: That's what I said. If she sticks to the deal, I'll stick to the deal. HUMPHRYS: But, what you're saying is: that if -
Have you seen the book, by the way? Have you read the book? HESELTINE: No, no. HUMPHRYS: So, if somewhere, later on in the book, she says Michael Heseltine is a rotten old so and so. HESELTINE: I'm sure we know that she thinks that so that won't actually sort of provoke great reaction in me. HUMPHRYS: What would it need to provoke you, then? HESELTINE: We'll just see. HUMPHRYS: What about what she has had to say about John Major? HESELTINE: Well, look. Let's stand back. My interest is in the unity and the success of the Conservative Party. I don't want to see, I deeply deplore the divisions between Left and Right and the accentuation of often very phony distinctions, the mislabelling that goes on. It's a development that has grown in my political lifetime over, I suppose, twenty years now and I don't like that aspect of politics, the divisiveness of it all, the personal sort of tensions of it all. I know it's there but I thought that John struck with me a very powerful note when he said in his Conference speech I should hear these things first in private. And, I don't think it would do any good for me, on this programme, or any of my colleagues - and, of course, the media will be now all over the place, trying to achieve this - to get instant reactions, instant comments which will blow the thing up. HUMPHRYS: But, you're clearly unhappy about it? You've made that point clear. HESELTINE: I cannot - I cannot believe that it is within the standards of the Conservative Party that I joined that this sort of diary writing, gossipy pseudo history is part of the convention. I think - one of the papers made this - I think, Alec Douglas Hume has set a sort of standard which I would admire. There were always memoirs but, I think, that the nature of them has changed and I'm not sure - well, I am sure - that it is for the worse. HUMPHRYS: It's causing damage? HESELTINE: I don't think the people come out of it well. HUMPHRYS: Any of them - including the authors? HESELTINE: I think, particularly the authors. HUMPHRYS: Should there be a change in the rules? HESELTINE: What rules? HUMPHRYS: There aren't any rules, at the moment, obviously. But should there..there are rules for Civil Servants. Should there be rules for politicians? HESELTINE: Well, there are rules.. HUMPHRYS: ..that say.. HESELTINE: Curiously enough, they seem to have..I have.. HUMPHRYS: Yeah, but they have only to do with things like national security and.. HESELTINE: Yes, but I think that, little by little, the conventions have been stretched. And, of course.. HUMPHRYS: Do you think they should be tightened up again? HESELTINE: It's huge money. Dramatic money, you know. And, and have no illusions, the money and the contents are very linked. That it's no use going round saying: well, here's my view of history, as I wrote it and it's factual, it's analytical, it's devoid of the sort of bitchiness of politics because you won't get enough money. HUMPHRYS: You mean people spice them up..? HESELTINE: Oh, yeah, sure, sure. HUMPHRYS: Do you think Mrs Thatcher's done that? HESELTINE: I have no idea. I wouldn't dream of making such an observation. HUMPHRYS: But sounds as though you suspect that? HESELTINE: I'm not even going to be drawn even by your deft questioning in this direction. HUMPHRYS: All right but the rules ought to be changed. The rules ought to be hardened up to stop this kind of thing going on. HESELTINE: I doubt if you could have rules. I doubt any more whether we live in the sort of society where you could have such rules. HUMPHRYS: Since we're talking about rules, what about Mrs Thatcher - Lady Thatcher - wanting to change the rules so that a sitting Prime Minister can't be challenged? HESELTINE: Oh, no, certainly not. Certainly not. Certainly not. I, personally, made it clear, at the time, when they changed the rules fairly recently that I didn't think they should. I think that politicians understand full well the nature of the profession in which they're involved and the Parliamentary Party is more than able to exercise a proper judgment. I don't think there's any case, at all, for changing. I don't think there was a case for changing the rules and I don't think there's a case for changing the rules today. HUMPHRYS: So, you're out of step with people like Douglas Hurd and Norman Fowler? HESELTINE: Well, you know, let's have a discussion. It's not.....You can't get a headline "Tories Divided Over Rule Change" HUMPHRYS: No but it's an interesting.. HESELTINE: No, no. I don't believe that. I think, it's perfectly reasonable that the Parliamentary Party should have those sort of powers and I'll tell you why I think it's reasonable because they would only use them seriously in extreme circumstances. It doesn't matter. I'm not going to name any names but, I mean, I've seen some people who it's been suggested might stand, it wouldn't matter two hoots of a flick of a finger whether someone of the sort that I've seen mentioned stood or not. HUMPHRYS: You're thinking of Mrs Teresa Gorman, perhaps? HESELTINE: I'm not going to be drawn into discussing names of any particular person, I'm merely saying it would be of no consequence. It would be a joke. Anyway, I don't think it's going to happen and I don't think it should happen. Let me make that absolutely clear. But nor do I think that you should somehow try to cosset the position of the leader of the Party in the extreme circumstances because, otherwise I can tell you what the alternative is: the alternative is the men in grey suits which is an
equally arbitrary process and it can actually concentrate power in the hands of a very small number of people. Some, perhaps, unrepresentative of the Parliamentary Party. HUMPHRYS: Is John Major unassailable now? HESELTINE: Yes, I think. My own view is that he will lead the Party to the next Election and he'll win it. But, I think, there's a desperately boring feature about the present political circumstances - from the media's point of view - and the more you stand back and look at it the clearer it is. Every political leader of an advanced democracy is in deep trouble whether it's in America, Japan, France, Germany or Britain. They're in deep political trouble because the electorate is simply distanced from the messages they have to put over, for very obvious reasons. The Electorate is going through a very difficult period. The economy has got huge problems associated with it. People's lives are profoundly effected. So, when a politician comes and says: well, it's going to get better, we've got to try harder, this is the policy we're going to pursue. They also think: that's - it's not doing me any good. And, it's not until that economic climate changes that people are able to relate to what the politicians say. There's nothing new in any of this. I remember 1981 but the media can't say that. They can't interpret that because what they've got to do is sell to their readers a story which the readers want to hear and so the media are constantly giving the impression that there's something that the British government should be doing, whilst there's a world economic malaise. HUMPHRYS: I'm not sure you can blame the media altogether. I notice you said there in almost these words: John Major will lead the Conservative Party into the next Election and the Conservatives will win. You said exactly that - I quote - word for word in November 1990 and a week later what happened, you challenged Mrs Thatcher and brought her down. HESELTINE: Well, it's interesting that- I mean-
these quotations get- very clever research- HUMPHRYS: Well you offered it! (Laughs) HESELTINE: Yeah, well - OK. Well, I haven't- I mean
I did, I did, actually think that Mrs Thatcher would lead us into the Election. I thought it was wrong that she should, as everybody knows. And, I think - frankly - we won the Election because she was not leader of the Party. That was my view and it still is my view and, I think, John Major fought a very distinguished campaign against the pundits, it has to be said. I hope I did everything that I could to help, as I did Mrs Thatcher. Nobody worked harder at the 1987 General Election than I did. HUMPHRYS: Yeah but the point I'm making is that you thought that would happen then. You say it may happen. It is going to happen now. Why should we believe it now anymore than we believed it then? HESELTINE: Well, thinking back, I didn't think, at that stage - I hope I'm right about this - that I had any idea that Geoffrey Howe was going to resign. I had never the slightest intention of challenging Mrs Thatcher. There was never-My view - and one day, if I ever get round to it I might set this all up- HUMPHRYS: Write your memoirs? HESELTINE: Yeah. In 1986, my view was a very, very clear one: to survive. And, nobody thought I could do that. I mean, not many people who'd clashed with Mrs Thatcher did survive but I did. That was my determination. HUMPHRYS: John Major is beset with problems. You wouldn't argue that. In fact, you said - again, if I may offer you one of your quotes - if you have backbenchers who won't support you that limits government's abilities to take decisions. You said that a few months ago. Since than, he's lost - you've lost - another seat - so his majority is even smaller - it's down from nineteen to seventeen. So, his abilities to take decisions are even more limited now than they were then, aren't they? He's in greater trouble now than he was then - for all sorts of reasons. HESELTINE: Well, that doesn't follow - no, no. What I said then was true. But, it doesn't follow that he's in greater trouble now because- HUMPHRYS: Smaller majority. HESELTINE: No. It isn't a small majority, in any serious- HUMPHRYS: Smaller. HESELTINE: It's only small because a very limited number of Conservatives on the backbenches are not totally reliable on too many occasions and it tends to be - I'm sad to have to say it - it tends to be a limited number of colleagues who are totally - I think - removed from the mainstream of what the majority of us want to see, who are prepared to withhold their votes in the House of Commons. And, I think, that there is going to come a point. Indeed, I think, John put this question fairly to Conference: if the Tories want to behave like the Labour Party did, then, we'll pay an Electoral price for it. I'm not against - I can't be against - the right of a Member of Parliament to withhold their vote from their government. I have done it on about three occasions in a third of a century and I wouldn't change that vote and I respect people who are prepared to do it. It requires guts and integrity - I'm not against that. But, for the sort of College Green psychology and the.. HUMPHRYS: For people who don't understand. College Green is the bit of greenery outside Westminster where people rush out to be interviewed on camera. HESELTINE: The sort of headline dash out of the House of Commons the moment the news breaks to get on television with some quick quote and, then, to withhold one's vote has an enormous amount of habit and routine that cannot be in the best interests of the Conservative Party. And, you have to realise, none of us are there because we've got happy, smiling faces. We're there because the Conservative Party chose us and put us there and so we have obligations to them. HUMPHRYS: But you're not there- you're not in Parliament to represent the Conservative Party, you're in Parliament to represent your Constituency. HESELTINE: I-I think, you've got to just look at that Constitutional concept. The Constituency that chose you was the Conservative Party - that chose you. HUMPHRYS: But you represent every individual in that Constituency? HESELTINE: Yes, but-no, no, no. You were chosen by the Conservative Party. You then stand for Election. The reason why you're elected is because a sufficient number of people wanted a Conservative government. Now, it's perfectly true they understand - I hope, rightly - within the framework and philosophy of the Conservative Party - that you have to respect the integrity of the individual but it doesn't mean to say that you are sending somebody who says he's a Conservative, going to support a Conservative government, the moment he gets there is to be found all over the place. HUMPHRYS: Yup, but if you feel strongly about a particular issue. Elizabeth Peacock during the coal pits dispute - when she was very, very upset at what you were planning to do, closing down all those coalmines. And, she went public about it. HESELTINE: Sure. HUMPHRYS: It was for her a matter of conscience and she was representing the interests of her Constituency. You're not saying: she shouldn't have been allowed to do that, she should have gone to John Major- HESELTINE: No, I- HUMPHRYS: -quietly - or to you quietly in some back room - and said: I'm a bit bothered about this. HESELTINE: No. I've made it clear. I, personally, like virtually all colleagues at some stage, voted against my Party, and that will always be a right and proper thing for a Member of Parliament to do, but it has to be done with great care, infrequently. It is, if you like, a nuclear deterrent in that sense and I don't quarrel with Elizabeth Peacock, who I like and admire and get on well with and actually have been to support on many occasions in her constituency. But I'm not thinking of Elizabeth as a matter of fact and there are some colleagues who are today much more lax with their loyalties. HUMPHRYS: And I mean you yourself, you know during the Westland you left a Cabinet meeting apparently Mrs. Thatcher thought you were going to the loo and you went on television to say I am resigning because I think she has got it wrong over Westland. HESELTINE: She didn't think I was going to the loo. HUMPHRYS: Or so we were told. HESELTINE: I dare say that's what you were told, it's not what she thought. HUMPHRYS: Did you say to her I'm going out and I may be gone for a long time. HESELTINE: If I remeber correctly those words that led to the death of a very distinguished explorer, I had no intention of dying the political death. The fact of the matter was that as has been recorded by those less emotionally charged at that moment, I didn't flounce out of the Cabinet, I had made it quite clear. HUMPHRYS: But you went on telly minutes later. HESELTINE: There was a television camera as you left Downing Street.... HUMPHRYS: You went to a press conference. HESELTINE: That was four o'clock in the afternoon. No no I mean when I've been drawn down a road I don't intend to go... HUMPHRYS: No, because the point I'm trying to make is that it is unrealistic surely for the leader of a party to say to his MPs who aren't delegates after all but who represent the interests of their constituencies, shut up, come to me privately if you have any concerns, that's not realistic is it. HESELTINE: I think he said first to me privately, in other words you talk it through, you try to resolve it, not dash for the television cameras, that was the point that I heard him make...and there will come a time after the private dialogues where people have the right. Let me give you an example, I've always respected Teddy Taylor and John Biffen, who
have taken an extreme view on Europe. I think they genuinely believe their case, it's not a case that I believe, but I've always genuinely respected them for the case they take, so I don't find it in myself to condemn people who as Conservatives take a different view to myself, but there has to be a degree of discretion, a degree of responsibility and you cannot have a situation where the, the sort of almost the norm is any difficult decision the government is going to have to take, there'll be a dozen colleagues who say not for us. I mean, I just do not really understand whether people fully realise the gravity of the economic situation that we face, we are going to have a very difficult set of decisions to take, they are going to be tough, there is no other government that would take these decisions. HUMPHRYS: And there is a division within the Party, isn't there, a real ideological divide within the party over how to deal with that, whether to raise taxes, whether to cut spending further. HESELTINE: Well this is what I keep reading about the right-left divide. HUMPHRYS: I didn't use that phrase. HESELTINE: No you didn't, there is no reason why we shouldn't. Every party is a coalition, it consists of a whole range of interest groups, a whole range of people with great integrity but approaching politics from a different point of view and the only basis upon which you can lead a party of that sort is to find a pivot where you..around which you can coalesce. If ever you get to the stage where the left of the party or the right of the party, either extreme wing feel that they have got such power that they can pull the whole thing their way, the danger is that the bits at the other end will snap and that of course is the disunity, danger which has
absolutely devastated the Labour Party where the left did exactly that and the moderate centre, if you can call it that, snapped off. For the Conservative
Party, which is in essence a party of power, huge historic prospective, huge experience of power, ever to get itself in a position where it's perceived to be struggling to the point of self destruction, would have its political consequences and they would be dire. HUMPHRYS: Let's look not so much at the left-right divide but the tone of the Party. Some people say that since you've been away and the conference illustrated this quite dramatically, particularly the fringe meetings, the tone of the party has changed. On Europe for instance, we've had Mr. Major telling the Europeans to get up..your tractors off our lawns. David Hunt calling Delors a jumped up socialist bureaucrat, that's...the language, the tone seems to have changed, to have got harder. On Europe first. HESELTINE: I hear what you say, I..my views on Europe are very simple. It's impossibe to overstate the economic relationship we now have with Europe. Nearly two thirds of our trade goes with Europe. I don't mind the sort of .. the use of language that gives this or that impression if that's what contemporary politics demands. I am as guilty of that as the next man, but if we create a psychology in this country where to the men and women who earn the crust upon which we depend, our business community, are switched off to the significance of Europe, there's only one people who will suffer and it is us. HUMPHRYS: And when Peter Lilley says for instance...(both talking together)..well all right, but Peter Lilley is saying, is suggesting in a speech at a party conference that half the population of continental Europe are scroungers, I mean one wonders how that helps this kind of partnership that you obviously think is so important. HESELTINE: Well I'm not prepared to become involved in discussing speeches which I didn't hear or which may well be out of context, anything of that sort. HUMPHRYS: Oh come on you hear that, you know that wasn't out of context. HESELTINE: It simply doesn't serve a purpose for me to allow that division to open up, I will only use my words to describe my circumstance and I know that whatever the rhetoric, Mrs. Thatcher used all the rhetoric, nobody took us further into Europe than Mrs. Thatcher. All these regulations that we're now having to..I'm having to with expert help from my colleague Neil Hamilton, having to look at and re-do, do you know where they all came from..most of them came from the single European Act from the Cofield (phon) agenda....which Mrs. Thatcher rightly committed us to and rightly whipped us through the House of Commons. HUMPHRYS: All right, so we're to ignore all these things we hear at the conference. HESELTINE: There is no difference between the endless bad mouthing between local and central government as one tries to blame the other and central government trying to blame the Europeans. The fact of the matter is every directive that comes out of Europe comes with the agreement of the British government, that's where it comes from. It comes to us, we have to put it throught the House of Commons and often we are the people who embroider it and overbear it with all the complications that are part of it and do you know where a lot of the directives from Brussels comes from? They come from British pressure groups, who go to Brussels, with their particular case and argue in Brussels to start the process of creating these regulations. HUMPHRYS: Alright, let's look at something else where people will say, are saying the Party has shifted, clearly shifted towards the right and that's social policy and I know you are..I'm not expecting you to comment on your colleagues but let me quote something else that Peter Lilley said, the massive expansion of the Welfare State since the war has not been accompanied by any diminution of social problems, any diminution of social problems, that's sending quite a signal isn't it. HESELTINE: Well I'd go further, they're worse. HUMPHRYS: So poverty is worse? HESELTINE: Not relative, not relative poverty because obviously the tide of prosperity has brought up the living standards of the western world. HUMPHRYS: It's better to have pensions than not to have pensions surely. HESELTINE: No no that is not what I was talking about, it was the social values, not the existence of the Welfare State, that is.. most of that Welfare State has been either created or extended by Conservative governments. HUMPHRYS: But Beveridge achieved nothing. HESELTINE: No Beveridge did, but he never intended to achieve what we've got. I mean you will know that I wrote a book called "No Time For Ostriches" when I was on the backbenches in favour of workfair. I think that with three million people out of work we have an unemployment problem which creates a disadvantaged group, particularly in some of the stress urban areas where we have to look at more radical solutions to what is basically the payment of cash for nothing in return. Now I've said that, it's not government policy, perhaps I'm stretching over the bounds of saying it, but these ideas are around. HUMPHRYS: But clearly what you have said in the past has led us to believe that you think self help does not solve all the problems. The government now seems to be telling us ... HESELTINE: How can you talk about self help solving all the problems when you've got an ageing population who'll never work again, I am talking about people who have already retired, there is absolutely no point in saying to some sixty five year old or seventy year old who is living on a State pension in a council house what you've got to do is help yourself. What does it mean. HUMPHRYS: So the government must help, the State must help. HESELTINE: What does the language of self help mean, to a seventy year old living on a State pension in a council house? What does it mean and unless you answer that question, you're just pandering to people's emotions. Now if you say to me this is, I'll go back to my workfair, if you are talking about the young kids of sixteen or who have left school haven't got a job, and they say well I want my welfare benefit, you are entitled to say well okay, we understand you've got a problem, we know that there is an economic difficulty across the world, what are you going to give us in exchange? And Beveridge would have been perfectly happy with that question. HUMPHRYS: Peter Lilley wouldn't. Well, all right I won't use the name Peter Lilley if you prefer I didn't. Others in the Cabinet would not. HESELTINE: Why should we be worried about the existence of a debate in the Cabinet, I mean, I remember I used to NATO discussions of defence ministers and people would sort of say, there is a division in NATO as though it was a crime, what was it, it was an alliance of democratic nations, if you can't have a debate there where can you, if you can't have a debate in Cabinet what's the point of Cabinet? HUMPHRYS: Yes debates in Cabinet perhaps, but we are not talking about debates in Cabinet, we are talking about speeches made at Blackpool or at fringe meetings at Blackpool, which lead people to believe that the government is moving substantially towards the right. Now that's significant, that isn't just a, this isn't just a debate about some vague ideological nicety, how many angels on the head of a pin, it's fundamental to the way British politics is going. HESELTINE: I..these labels are so difficult to fit because if you say moving to the right you then have to show me what policies the government is pursuing you will probably find that I have either played a part in the thinking of them or arguing for them some years before some of my colleagues. HUMPHRYS: Well we're talking about policies that haven't yet been instituted, I mean we've got Michael Howard now talking about maybe it's better if the illegitimate children of single mums are adopted rather than stay with their mothers. HESELTINE: Well that is something to the best of my knowledge the government has not announced or taken any sort of decision on. HUMPHRYS: But the Home Secretary is saying ... (talking together) HESELTINE: .....I'm not trying to cop out but a disadvantage of not having been.....I haven't seen that quotation from.... HUMPHRYS: All right but you would not approve of that kind of language, of that kind of expression of government intent if that's what it was. HESELTINE: I think that would be something that
would be controversial. I would like to know more about what Michael is saying before I got involved in any discussion of that. HUMPHRYS: And when Mrs. Thatcher, when Lady Thatcher talks about the Thatcher inheritance, that much more secure... being that much more secure... HESELTINE: I have always been worried about the
personalisation of what I believe is the great traditions of the Tory Party. I know, I have worked for Churchill, Eden, MacMillan, Hume, Heath, Thatcher, we never had this personalisation of the great traditions until very recently and frankly, I think it and I hope to God that John, I know he doesn't want to see it happen to him, I hope to God it doesn't, because it's a...I mean frankly it gives the impression that this remarkable political force which has governed a democracy longer than any other political party in history has somehow or other created a new philosophy in the last ten years, what have we been dong all this time? HUMPHRYS: Michael Heseltine I'll have to stop you there thank you very much indeed. HESELTINE: Thank you. HUMPHRYS: Michael Heseltine talking to me a little earlier today. ...oooOOOooo...