................................................................................ ON THE RECORD RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 7.5.95 ................................................................................ JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good afternoon. Well, what IS to be done? Tory Party workers want something to happen after the Thursday massacre ... but their leaders it seems don't agree with them. I'll be putting their worries live to the man who many think will have to carry the can ... the Party Chairman, Jeremy Hanley. That's after the news read by Moira Stuart. NEWS HUMPHRYS: Laura Trevelyan reporting there. Well Jeremy Hanley, we know now as a result of that interview in the Mail this morning what Mr Major thinks needs to be done - better communication - in short. Wasn't that your job? JEREMY HANLEY: Well certainly communication is one of the jobs that I've got and it's clear that we haven't got the message through in the way that the electorate really need to understand the message because the policies are right and the policies are coming out exactly as we need to help with the economic recovery of the country and that's what helps provide the better services which we're providing too. And the Prime Minister, I believe, does have a gift, he has a gift of talking to people at grassroot level, he has a gift of communicating with people as he showed at the last General Election and what he said today in the newspapers is greatly to be welcomed because it means therefore that he will be more upfront with the communication with local people as indeed is his natural instinct. HUMPHRYS: But if that was your job and you said before the election "I will carry the can, I will bear the responsibility if things don't go wrong", haven't you got to consider your position now? HANLEY: Well I'm not going to be one of those who would slink from the field of battle when things get tough, I'm certainly not going to surrender, I will carry on and do this job for as long as the Prime Minister wants me to because it is a job that is extremely important I believe in trying to get through to the people exactly what the benefits of government policies have been. HUMPHRYS: But you failed, by your own admission. HANLEY: Clearly we have much more work to do. If you look at the economy you will see that it is succeeding, but people don't feel that themselves. HUMPHRYS: And that's down to you in part because you didn't get the message across and so what I'm... HANLEY: In part it is. HUMPHRYS: So what I'm suggesting to you is that if by your own admission you failed, should you not offer your resignation. HANLEY: It's not for me, as I say, to surrender, it's for the Prime Minister to decide on the make-up of his government but what we have seen, of those election results on Thursday, if we are a sensitive party, if we are actually to take the messages, which I believe we should take, then certainly we've got to decide where we put our efforts to make sure that the electorate do appreciate what is happening and that's exactly what the Prime Minister is doing. He is saying, now look, let's listen to what they've said, they've given their verdict last Thursday, a verdict which as you have said, is clear for all to see. It's not, by the way, a verdict that they are completely against our policies, if you just look at the voting strength. But there's a very important point, which is that only thirty-eight per cent of the public of this country voted last Thursday. Only eighteen per cent of the public were so fired with enthusiasm for Mr Blair and his new Labour Party that they went out and supported it. Now that means that there are a lot of people there sitting at home waiting to see what the results of these policies are and that shows... (BOTH TALKING AT THE SAME TIME) HUMPHRYS: .....some of the largest turn outs were in Liberal Democrat and Labour areas. But let me return to this terribly important point, you said and you've repeated it this morning, we are failing, we have failed to get our message across. You are one of the men whose prime responsibility is to do that. You say "I won't retreat from the field of battle" that's one way of looking at it, but should you not because there is an honourable tradition of resignation within the Conservative Party, you have to go a fair way back to find it admittedly but nonetheless, should you not say "Prime Minister, here's my resignation if you want to accept it" HANLEY: Look, it's for a Prime Minister to decide who has what.... HUMPHRYS: Well of course it is....it's his decision whether to accept it or not. Have you considered it? HANLEY: But there's no need to resign if the Prime Minister can make a decision whenever he wants, and he will. I'm absolutely certain that the Prime Minister will decide what is best for the country and then for the party but he has made many decisions which have been in the national interest and I'm certain that with these policies he has shown a great courage, a great courage to act in the national interest and when the time comes he will no doubt decide on the make-up of his government. That is what a Prime Minister's job is. HUMPHRYS: But that question that I put to you, have you....when you woke up on Friday morning and saw how bad it was, I'm assuming that you went to bed at all on Thursday night which you probably didn't... HANLEY: A couple of hours sleep. HUMPHRYS: Did you not think: well, I said I would bear the responsibility if it went badly wrong, it did go badly wrong, I should now think about offering the Prime....of course it's for him whether to accept it or not, but as a man of honour I should offer him my resignation. Did that occur to you? HANLEY: First of all, the Prime Minister gave me this job, he gave me this job.. HUMPHRYS: I accept that. HANLEY: He gave me this job through thick and thin, until such time as he decides otherwise. Now... HUMPHRYS: That wasn't the question though, the question was whether you'd considered your position and thought maybe I should offer him my resignation: it's for him to decide. HANLEY: I'll tell you what I did consider. I considered what can we do to make things so much better so that people actually treat not only the Prime Minister, but the record of this government better than they have with this election result. Now that meant that I've got to redouble all my efforts to try to make sure that we do get across the message.. HUMPHRYS: So you didn't consider the possibility of... HANLEY: Can I answer one point that you made.. HUMPHRYS: I'd like to you to answer that specific point.. HANLEY: No, I'm trying to answer one of your questions, there are rather a lot. HUMPHRYS: Right I'll slim it down if you like, I'll repeat the one, the central one as far as I was concerned for the moment anyway.. HANLEY: Let me answer one question that you put, you said that I was responsible for this election campaign, I take full responsibility for that campaign, I take full responsibility for the way that we actually said to people exactly what the good record of Conservative councillors were throughout the country. HUMPHRYS: The campaign was a disaster. HANLEY: The campaign was not a disaster. HUMPHRYS: The result was a disaster, so what you're saying here is the operation was successful, what a pity the.... (BOTH TALKING AT THE SAME TIME) HANLEY: I thoroughly agree the result was most disappointing, indeed a disaster is how you've phrased it and I wouldn't be far short of that. But the campaign and I stick to this, the campaign exposed the dangers of Labour councils, it exposed their inefficiency and their ineffectiveness, it exposed in certain areas where they are corrupt, where there are police investigations, internal labour investigations and none of those can be swept under the carpet just because of an election result. They also showed the good record of Conservative councils and they'll be many places over the next year that will regret perhaps what they did because we've proved during our campaign that Labour councils cost you very much more. Now, I therefore will stand by our campaign but I must also of course recognise that people are very upset at the moment, very disillusioned at the moment because they don't feel the benefit of the policies which we've introduced and that is the challenge of the months ahead. HUMPHRYS: Right, well you've answered that question, not quite the one I asked you. Let me just try once more to get this answer from you. Did you consider offering your resignation when you realised how bad it had been? HANLEY: I did not for one very simple reason. That I've been given this job by the Prime Minister, as I say through thick and thin, it is my job to fight even when times are tough. It is not my job to slink, as I said, off the field of battle, that is not for me, that is for the Prime Minister to decide, and if he wants me to carry on with this task, I'd do so most willingly. Some of the best parts of the job are meeting people and listening to them. When he appointed me he told me "go out and listen to them and bring back what they say, tell me fearlessly" he said "don't in any way pull your punches, say exactly what they're saying and say it to the other cabinet ministers" and that I've done and that I will continue to do. HUMPHRYS: Don't you think some of your colleagues might say "it would have been the honourable thing to do, to offer my resignation - it's upto the Prime Minister to decide of course. HANLEY: You seem to be trying to push this one, you know, beyond the bounds of reason. I've said very clearly indeed that I
regard my duty, my loyalty to the Prime Minister to serve him as he wants me to be served, in other words if he wants me to serve him in this particular task, I'd do so. I take the responsibility for the campaign, yes I listen to what the people have said and I will...well over the next few weeks and months, without any doubt assess what they have said, listen to them still further. And the Prime Minister will be taking the lead in that and that I think will be of
tremendous advantage to our party nationally. HUMPHRYS: But it is more than just communication, isn't it, it's more than just a breakdown of communication. In some ways it seems that the party, the leadership, has lost it's political nous. There are too many silly things happening that upset your workers and in turn, then, they're unable to get the message across to your potential supporters. HANLEY: Well, I'll say two things. First of all, it is far harder being in government than being in opposition. John Major, and the whole cabinet, have to make hundreds of decisions each week, some of them very difficult indeed. They are all, I hope, in the national interest. They may not be in the short term party political interest, but I believe that the interests of our party do actually coincide with the interests of the nation in due course, and I am certain that by the time we get to the general election, the interest of the party will have coincided with the interests of the nation as are economic recovery comes through. The second thing that I think is important is that Mr Blair, of course, doesn't have to make any decisions, he has to make up what his next sound bite is. That's what he spends his time trying to do, so it is sometimes difficult, as I say, being in government. Now, when you say surely there have been some silly things happening, well, I think it is true that occasionally the media decide to concentrate on some small issue, and blow it out of all proportion. Sometimes they are justified. But sometimes they are not, and sometimes they are playing the opposition agenda. The opposition, Labour and Liberals, were trying desperately hard not to concentrate on local government issues. Labour's record in local government is atrocious, and they were trying to do anything but concentrate on their own record, and so they clutch at things that happen nationally, where there may be some sort of story that's been exposed, and gleefully try and work it for all they can, especially during local government election week. HUMPHRYS: So, the line is then, that governments difficult. It's media getting it all up. It's all the media's fault? HANLEY: Anybody listening to me would not actually agree with that interpretation. Government is difficult, yes, but it also has great joys too. The fact that we can actually recover this nation economically, which the Labour party couldn't do. The fact that we are actually producing better services, more patients in the National Health Service, rather than causing a whole . . . as Mr Prescott was saying the other day, that they want a revolution again in the National Health Service. There are great joys in government, too. HUMPHRYS: But you're saying you dismiss the way I summarise what you just said, but that is just exactly what you said. You said government's difficult . . . HANLEY: Yes. HUMPHRYS: The media getting it all up because the Labour Party is exploiting our difficulties. Well, I thought that was the job of the opposition to exploit the government's difficulties, that's what it's all about, and if you can't cope with that, as you manifestly haven't been doing, sometimes by your own admission over the last weeks and months, it proves my point, doesn't it? You've lost your political antenna. HANLEY: Of course, opposition is meant to exploit governments, of course they are, but they're also meant to produce their policies too, and show why they should be . . . HUMPHRYS: But not necessarily two years before they go to the electorate, and we'll get those, but in the meantime. HANLEY: Hang on a second, we've just had local government elections. They didn't say a thing about local government elections. HUMPHRYS: It didn't seem to bother the electorate. HANLEY: Mr Blair came out with figures that were patently phony, and that, as you say, didn't seem to bother the electorate, it didn't bother the press either. How many members of the press actually said these figures are phony, they were proved phony a year ago, they're phony now as well, and if they were phony for Mr Blair to say them this year, which I know they were, then what else is phony about Mr Blair? HUMPHRYS: So are you saying that is this . . . because what I'm doing, is I'm sort of looking for lines of defence or attack, whichever you prefer. Are you saying that you can't do much about anything, you, in the Tory Party, until the Labour Party tells you what it's going to do, then you can attack it, but that's hardly a strategy, is it? HANLEY: You see, you've said that perhaps I should consider resigning after the local government campaign. That campaign was wholly honest. Everything I said that was positive about Conservative local government . . . HUMPHRYS: But we dealt with that. HANLEY: No, no we haven't finished with it, because everything I said was positive, everything I said about the Labour party was right too, so the campaign goes on. HUMPHRYS: The operation was successful, but the patient died, you see, so you can't keep going back to that, can you, saying that in future . . . HANLEY: You can keep saying what is true as often as possible until it gets through. Now about this government, we can still . . . HUMPHRYS: Well that rather implies to me, that the voters are pretty thick, until it gets through, you keep saying, you sound like a teacher in grade two B or something, you know, keep telling those stupid kids because if you don't keep telling them they'll never get the message. HANLEY: I didn't say that, but what I do say is that sometimes if you've got the right policies, as we have on the economy, as we have on the delivery of public services, if you've got the right policies, then it is right to keep hammering out those truths, those successes of the government. If John Major is actually creating the strongest growing economy in the whole of Europe, if the Japanese, if the Americans will recognise that, if almost every other country in the world recognises the strength of our industrial base, the strength of our exports, the fact that we have tackled inflation better than almost any other nation in Europe, the fact that we're tackling unemployment, that we have better unemployment reductions that Spain or France, and that the minimum wage is dangerous, that the social chapter would shackle our businesses, surely one has to keep hammering out those messages. HUMPHRYS: But you see . . . HANLEY: Because they are right, and therefore if the electorate at this moment doesn't feel personally, in their pocket, that actually the recovery is affecting them, you have to still keep telling them the truth and then, as time goes on, they will begin to feel that that truth was right. The trouble with Mr Blair is that he changes his mind so often. We've had values, we've had policies, and we stick to them, because they are right. Now the communication may certainly have been, if not deficient, then certainly not good enough for people to appreciate exactly what is happening to this country, so on that direction we've got to keep going, and we must keep asking people what they want of the Conservative Party, what the deficiencies are, keep listening to our grass-roots. That's what the Prime Minister's initiative is all about. HUMPHRYS: But it isn't, you keep saying they don't understand what we're doing. Your difficulty is, it's not just they the voters, it's your party workers who are looking for something from you, who now seem to want something new that they can offer the people who ought to be supporting them, who ought to be voting for you, but they can't seem to find that, and nothing you've told me in that answer suggests that there is anything new in the locker. And all you can say is "we're going to do the same thing that we've been doing all this time, and just keep telling them that's it's good for them". We'll give them the same old medicine and they must learn to enjoy that medicine. HANLEY: No, that's not again what I said. I do think that what we need to do . . . HUMPHRYS: Well there's something somewhere in that case, because I couldn't near anything new in that. HANLEY: What I'm saying is that the policies are right. The policies will come good, and people will feel the benefit of those policies. Now, that is true. What is wrong is the way we have been putting our message across, and I take full responsibility for my share of that, without any doubt, and what the Prime Minister is saying is we must get closer to people on the grass-roots. Now I've been doing that for the last few months, and he and the rest of the government recognise that it's the people who gave us power that need to be listened to, and we've got to do that, and there will be things that they say which we'll have to consider changing. Of course if you remember the much maligned Maples research, back last summer, the scientific research was absolutely valid, it was asking people who had voted for us at the last general election, and then they were showing their disaffection in one way or another, and we were listening to what they had to say, and in fact our party conference was based on what they said, what they wanted, and we did hammer out some of the successes of the government; because if other people aren't going to hammer out the successes, the good things that have happened under this government, who is but us? HUMPHRYS: But, if you can't offer them something new and I take your point that what you're saying is that the medicine, at the moment is the right medicine. You've made that point very, very firmly in this interview - if you can't offer them something new, then perhaps what you've got to be able to offer them and I'm talking now about your party workers out there in the field who are feeling very bruised and battered, at the moment - if not suicidal - is the sort of inspirational leadership that's going to take you forward. Now that perhaps is your problem. You don't have that inspirational leadership - that star quality. HANLEY: Well I disagree because if you take the last General Election campaign. The Prime Minister - I think, almost all people would ajudge - won a campaign that the wise pundits said he could not win. HUMPHRYS: And that was because he's an inspirational leader? HANLEY: Yes. Most people believe that that was because of his own character, his own psyche. The way in which he relates to individuals. HUMPHRYS: I'm not talking about character. Many people would say that the Prime Minister has very many good qualities. We heard the Chancellor this morning say that he is a nice man. Well, fine, but I'm talking about this sort of...the star quality that The Daily Telegraph talked about yesterday. The man on the white charger. HANLEY: I would far rather and I'm sure the whole of the British people would far rather a person of substance, rather than an image. We've, after all, got that image. We saw with the Clause Four debate, just five/six days before Local Government Election. HUMPHRYS: Yeah but with Margaret Thatcher you had both didn't you, you had the person of substance and you had somebody who was able to inspire people. HANLEY: With Mr Blair we have all froth and bubble. It's all image. There is no substance there. On the same day as Mr Blair was standing there on the platform.... HUMPHRYS: I'm not talking about Mr Blair. HANLEY: ...Mr Prescott was talking about renationalisation. HUMPHRYS: I'm not talking about Mr Blair. I'm talking about your own party. HANLEY: ...he was talking about abandoning competitive tendering. He was introducing a new strikers' charter. The reality underneath the image is something which the British public will, I believe, notice more and more over the next two years. HUMPHRYS: Are you saying that in the Tory Party there isn't somebody with both those inspirational qualities - the white knight on the charger, or whatever it is - plus the substance that you talk about? HANLEY: I would far rather have substance, coupled with ability and courage. And the Prime Minister has shown in his own way and it's a way which I find inspirational, He has shown, after all, how we can try and achieve peace in Northern Ireland. Permanent peace in Northern Ireland was but a dream some years ago. He, by his own particular skills has managed to square that circle and I hope continues to do so. HUMPHRYS: So, in a nutshell your message to the Party workers is: Steady as she sinks! HANLEY: No, my message to the Party workers is that we have a great Prime Minister who won us the last General Election with the biggest single vote that any political Party ever in British history has achieved. He got a mandate for five years and he deserves that mandate so as to show that the policies which he's introduced - the courageous policies - will, actually, come good and people will feel them. And, therefore, I have full confidence in the Prime Minister and so should you. HUMPHRYS: Jeremy Hanley, thank you very much, indeed. HANLEY: Right. ...oooOooo...