NB. THIS TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A TRANSCRIPTION UNIT 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 ................................................................................ ON THE RECORD INTERVIEW WITH STEPHEN DORRELL MP RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 5.3.95 ................................................................................ JOHN HUMPHRYS: And with me now the Heritage Secretary, Stephen Dorrell, one of the bright young things in the Cabinet, often spoken of as a future Party Chairman, and one day who knows, party leader. Mr. Dorrell, good morning. You're looking at a bloodbath aren't you? STEPHEN DORRELL MP: No, we're not looking at anything certain yet. I think if I may say so reports of our death have been somewhat overwritten because these elections are still two months in the future, and what's going to happen between now and the beginning of May is that we're going to explain our case to the electorate. Explain, for example, that if you live in a Tory Council, you're currently paying on average four hundred and thirty pounds, Band C Council Tax. If you live in a Labour area you're spending five hundred and sixty pounds on the local council. Do you actually want to spend a hundred and thirty pounds more on average a year on your council? That's the choice that we shall be presenting to the electorate between now and May. HUMPHRYS: So you think you're going to do well in May do you? DORRELL: No but I'm not predicting the result in May. What I'm saying to you is that I'm not accepting your prediction, nor am I offering one in reply. What I'm saying is that we have an argument to explain to the electorate between now and polling day. HUMPHRYS: What would be well as far as you're concerned? What would be alright as far as you're concerned in these coming elections? DORRELL: The objective of any political party in fighting an election is to secure the maximum possible return of its own candidates. I'm not setting targets, what I want to do is to secure the maximum possible number of Conservative councillors in May for one reason - because I think that's the best way of delivering high quality efficient public services through local authorities. Local authorities are responsible for a huge range of public services in Britain - Education, Housing, Social Services, and when they're not run efficiently it's the electorate that suffers. I want to see them run efficiently. HUMPHRYS: And that's one reason but the other reason of course is that it's hugely important to the party nationally isn't it? DORRELL: Of course it's important to the party to win elections at every level but you see you paraded in your film a one term Conservative councillor in Bury who's changed sides. I reply with him with Mr Leo Mackinstry (phon) who isn't a one term councillor, he was an office holder on Labour controlled Islington Council. He was a researcher to Labour's front bench, he has recently made it clear that he no longer thinks that Labour offers the best alternative either at local or at national level, because as he said, Labour councils are the prisoners of an ideology of political correctness and over reliance on their Trade Union support. He has articulated the case and he should know, he's an ex-powerful figure in the Labour party that Labour services are inefficient. HUMPHRYS: It's a message that you've been trying to get across for a long time but you obviously are not getting it across. What's going to change between now and when we go to the polls in two months time? DORRELL: With respect that's an argument you can always put to any political party after it's suffered an electoral reverse. What we're engaged in between now and May is arguing the case for efficiently run local government delivering high quality services. Arguing the case against what Mr Blair and his cronies are arguing for in terms of Government, not only are they arguing for inefficient methods in existing tiers of Government, they're also arguing for a fifth tier of Government covering much of the country. Not only have we got Brussels and Westminster and County Councils and District Councils, Mr Blair thinks there should be a fifth additional regional tier of Government with paid officials and paid councillors too. Now I have to say my constituents in the East Midlands don't know of a problem to which a fifth tier of Government is a solution. HUMPHRYS: The problem is though that when we vote in local elections, as one of the councillors in that film told us, some of us are concerned about local issues, of course, but when it comes to putting that cross on the ballot paper, we decide by and large on national issues, and that's your problem isn't it. You're going to be judged nationally and everything tells us that if you're going to be judged nationally you're going to be found wanting. DORRELL: Well I'm quite content to be judged at either local or at national level, because if we get onto the national arguments, the arguments are that as a result of the difficult medicine that we've been taking over the last three years, we've now got one of the best economic prospects this country has faced for a generation. We've seen over the last eighteen months unemployment falling now by getting on for half a million, we've seen low inflation, we've seen a balance of trade surplus at the end of last year including a trade surplus with Japan which is something which is unusual in our recent history. If you look forward on the economic and national front, what you see is the prospect of a secure economic recovery delivering improving living standards for individuals as well as money for improving public services. That's the Conservative case at a national level, reinforcing the case for efficient management of public services which we shall be making at a local level. HUMPHRYS: And yet that message is not getting across, and your problem is that when the middle class voter turns out in May, he or she is going to look at what's just happened to them. They've seen their taxes higher than they've ever seen them before. They've seen mortgage income tax relief falling, they've seen interest rates rising, they've seen the value of their homes falling, job security, a huge problem for them. Those are the things that actually matter to them. DORRELL: Well, two points. Firstly you say the argument isn't getting across. That's not an answer to the argument, that's simply underlines the need to establish whether the argument is true or not. The mere fact that the argument isn't.... HUMPHRYS: It's almost irrelevant, in a sense, whether... DORRELL: Oh, hang on a second. I'm sorry, I certainly accept that it's irrelevant.... HUMPHRYS: ....from the point of view of the way people are going to vote in two months time doesn't much matter, in one sense, whether it's true, because if people think it isn't true they will vote accordingly. DORRELL: Either politicians try to deal in realities, or else the whole argument is lost. Now, what I'm trying to do, is to explain the case for the government at both national and local level. Now, I recognise that the second point of your question, was to ask me about undoubted middle class uncertainties, and concerns following the recent recession. Of course, those are all true, but the best answer to those, is to be able to demonstrate as we can that the prospect for the short and medium term under a Conservative government is to avoid precisely the ups and downs of the economic cycle which created those uncertainties. HUMPHRYS: If it's all downs, then people are going to be concerned about it, aren't they? I mean the recessions been over for two or three years, three years according to Mr Major, and yet they're not seeing the benefits of that. DORRELL: And the best answer to those who are concerned about job security, those who are concerned about the effect of fluctuating mortgage rates on their disposable incomes, the best answer to those people is to say that what we've created is economic circumstances where growth is likely to continue, not just in the government's view, but in the view of almost all the independent observers, growth will continue, delivering improving job opportunities. It must be true that job insecurity gets less of a problem as unemployment declines. It's now declined by getting on for half a million, and as regards the fluctuations of the mortgage rate. Of course it's true, that's caused enormous damage to the government standing among its core supporters. It is precisely the prospect of stability going into the medium term that offers the escape from those fluctuating mortgage rates. HUMPHRYS: But people, you see, don't believe it. They simply, all the evidence is, and you heard it again in that film there, the evidence is that they don't believe it. Jam tomorrow. What they're saying is actually after three years, we want a bit of jam now, we'd actually quite like to feel better off, we would quite like to feel that our job is going to be there in another two years, five years, ten years, and we don't feel that, at least your core, bedrock, middle class supporters don't feel that. DORRELL: Well, with great respect, I'm not offering jam tomorrow, I'm pointing out that these are rewards, these are successes that are there today, successes in terms of job creation... HUMPHRYS: But not helping people apparently. DORRELL: I'm sorry, if you were one of the half a million people who were on the unemployment register, nearly half a million, and they're now no longer on the unemployment register, you will feel better. HUMPHRYS: Yes but you know and I know that we're talking about two different groups of people here, by and large the people you're talking about there may not have been Tory supporters, they may have been people on lower incomes. They will not be by and large the middle class people whom you absolutely must have in your camp. DORRELL: Yes I agree but look at how job security develops as a fear in a community. It develops when people see in their own place of employment the order book getting short, short time starting to develop and people getting uncertain about whether their job will be there in six or twelve months time. Now there are many millions of people now working in Britain who know that their employer far from shedding labour is recruiting labour and that must contribute to a reversal of job insecurity. In terms of interest rates, you said jam tomorrow, I'm promising jam tomorrow on stable interest rates, that's not the case at all. Interest rates four years ago stood at fifteen per cent, fifteen, sixteen per cent. They've risen by one and a half per cent... HUMPHRYS: Steady, steady upwards path. DORRELL: One and a half per cent from the lowest level since the early 1970s, still very low interest rates by comparison with the average we've seen in recent years. Why is that? Interest rates are relatively low still because inflation is low and the markets believe we shall keep it low. If we jeopardise that then we're straight back into the cycles
which created precisely the uncertainties which you rightly point to. HUMPHRYS: Even if you succeed in getting that message, the economic message across, effectively you've still got this other huge problem - the perception of the Tory party as a fundamental profoundly divided party and voters don't like that. DORRELL: You're quite right to say that if the party is seen to be divided that willundermine our effectiveness at explaining our case. HUMPHRYS: And you wouldn't deny that it is seen to be divided. DORRELL: I certainly wouldn't deny we've had difficulties over the last few months. What I think is now emerging in the Cabinet, in the Parliamentary Party, I think you saw this last Wednesday and certainly in the party in the country, I have no doubt whatever about that at all, you're seeing right through the party is a recognition that we've actually created economic circumstances that compare favourably with anything we've seen in Britain for thirty years. We've seen over the last fifteen years a transformation in the effectiveness and the quality of our public services. The truth is that all of that is at risk of being thrown away if we don't succeed in making those cases, and making the case on Europe which the Prime Minister has made repeatedly and which is a case that the party can unite about which is that what we're in favour of is a flexible, outward looking, competitive Europe and we shall argue that case in the I.G.C. and every other forum in the European context. HUMPHRYS: You say all of that is in danger of being thrown away. DORRELL: It's in danger of being thrown away if we can't reverse the standing in the opinion polls with which you started. Now you started with a prediction, I'm not interested in predictions. I recognise the party has a problem and we have to make the argument in order to rebuild our electoral support. The argument seems to me to be one of the best arguments that any political party has had in my political lifetime. We have the opportunity to make it to win back the support we've lost over the last three years. HUMPHRYS: But you are divided as a party as to the solution and that's something you'll never be able to persuade people otherwise. That is your Achille's heel isn't it? DORRELL: With great respect I don't believe we are divided over... UMPHRYS: Well you saw it in Bury there on the ground. DORRELL: Except that there's the perception of division on the European issue, I don't believe that on the great majority of what we're about, we are at all divided. HUMPHRYS: But Europe, as Mr Major said, is the most important issue facing this......single European currency the most important issue of the century. DORRELL: And you say the party voting virtually all in the same lobby on Wednesday night because the Prime Minister set out there a policy for Europe around which the Tory Party both in parliament and outside parliament can unite. But it's an important issue, Europe, but it's by no means the only issue. If you're concerned about middle class insecurities, if you're concerned about the quality of education, the quality of the health service, those are all important issues too, and on all of those issues, the party has an extremely strong case to make, and one which I believe will persuade the electorate, if they are given the opportunity to hear it. HUMPHRYS: But you've been trying to make that case now for years. You've got two months in which to make it before these next terribly important elections. It must worry you that at the very least at these elections you are going to lose an important number of foot soldiers, the people who are the cement that holds this party together, in the language of your own chairman, Mr Handley. DORRELL: Yes, I agree entirely with that language. I am not concerned to make predictions about what will happen in May. What I'm concerned to do, is to use opportunities such as your programme, and hundreds of others around the country, to explain the case for what we have done, what we want to go on doing, and the extent to which it is endangered by the alternatives available. Actually one of the interesting things going on in local government at the moment, is the decline of the Liberals. We've seen across the country Conservative councillors face, tend to face, Labour councillors in one part of the country and Liberal councillors in another. My own home city of Worcester which saw us last Thursday taking back a seat which we'd lost to the Liberals a couple of years ago. HUMPHRYS: Ah, but that's only because so many people voted for Tony Blair in that particular case, or for the Labour party in that particular case. So that isn't one you really want to boast about, is it, because when you look at the details of those figures, it's actually not good news for you. DORRELL: Well, it's not bad news, when there's - we lost a seat to the Liberals, which we now take back and have a Tory councillor. HUMPHRYS: It used to be a safe seat. And the Liberal Democrats vote split because people voted for the Labour Party, that's exactly your problem. DORRELL: Well, hang on a second. If we can see a picture where the people are deserting the Liberals... HUMPHRYS: For Labour... DORRELL: ..recognising the clear choice is an argument between us and Labour, then at least we're focussing on the real issue in any election, and then between us and Labour I simply revert to the proposition that if you vote Tory, the average band C council tax, four hundred and thirty pounds, the average band C tax in Labour, five hundred and sixty pounds, that is a price difference between Tory and Labour of nearly three pounds a week. HUMPHRYS: If the elections are anything like as bad as we expect, and Bill Bush has been accurate about these things as in the past to a matter of seats, then Mr Major is ultimately going to have to carry the can, isn't he? DORRELL: No, I'm not forecasting what is going to happen because there is two months between now and polling day. It's a very odd form of democratic election that invites me to analyse the results two months before the electorate get their say. HUMPHRYS: Stephen Dorrell, thank you very much. ...oooOooo...