t ................................................................................ ON THE RECORD IAN LANG INTERVIEW RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 2.7.95 ................................................................................ JOHN HUMPHRYS: Emma Udwin. Well, earlier this morning, I spoke to one of the men running Mr Major's campaign, the Scottish Secretary Ian Lang. I asked him first if he thought all this COULD clear the air. IAN LANG MP: I believe he can. I sense in the Party, and in the country, a mood that this Leadership contest should be brought to an end decisively on Tuesday. I think, our supporters in the constituencies around the country have been given a great lift by this determined act of leadership by John Major. They're rallying to him. We've seen ourselves rise in the opinion polls. I think, suddenly, the Party is willing to look beyond next Tuesday and that we can capitalise on this. We can get underway again, coming together with a renewed authority of our leader and Prime Minister, to tackle the real enemy which is the Labour Party. HUMPHRYS: This is quite a job, isn't it - soothing (phon) dissent in the Party? It's quite an ambitious aim. LANG: Well, there's been speculation and rumour about the degree of the dissent within the Party for a long time. And, I think, the Prime Minister was absolutely right to say: let's end this now. I will lay my job on the line. Let's see what the position really is. He invited anyone who wanted in the Party to put up or shut up. He has now a real contest with a former Cabinet Minister and I sense that this has brought the Party to focus on the reality of this issue - to take a decision - and that will help clear the air afterwards. HUMPHRYS: Well, it might. But, a mere technical victory wouldn't would it - couldn't. LANG: We're not in the territory of technical victories. I sense that the mood is shifting firmly and decisively towards a very substantial victory. And, I think, people are recognising now is the time to put this behind us so that we can maintain the momentum as a party that we've got with a renewed internal mandate for government and get on with governing the country - explaining our policies in a united and uniform way to the electorate and challenging the Labour Party - challenging them on why they want to dismantle the Health Service again; why they want to disrupt our Education policies; why they want to surrender our veto in Europe and so on. HUMPHRYS: So, you'd accept - you have accepted that a mere technical victory wouldn't achieve that ambitious aim that you've set for yourselves? LANG: Well, we're not talking about technicalities and mathematics. We're simply not getting drawn into that. HUMPHRYS: No, no. I understand that. And, I'm not-because I don't how the thing is going to come out, any more than you, obviously. LANG: Quite, I mean the rules are there, you can speculate endlessly but what we want is an impressive endorsement of the Prime Minister. HUMPHRYS: Right, that's the point, isn't it? It has to be an impressive endorsement, if it is going to do what you want it to do - and, that is distil the dissent within the Party - to clear the air. LANG: We want to distil the dissent and clear the air but we also want to maintain our momentum, to look to the next Election, to getting our associations and our Members of Parliament working together, singing the same song from the same hymn sheet, in a way that carries conviction with the electorate and gets a greater comprehension and support for the policies and what they're achieving. HUMPHRYS: So, if it's not what you describe - an impressive endorsement, a very substantial victory for the Prime Minister - then, it will not have achieved what it was meant to achieve. LANG: Well, in deciding to have this contest, the Prime Minister was opening up the opportunity for the Party to take a decision. I sense, as we move towards the close of the contest, that the Party is taking a decision. And, I sense, that the coming together of the Party is to recognise that the Prime Minister is going to win on Tuesday and that it is in all our interests that he should win very substantially. HUMPHRYS: Very substantially. If he fails, therefore, to win very substantially, to achieve that very substantial victory, that you talked about, he can't carry on, can he? LANG: Well, let's wait and see what happens on Tuesday and I think you'll find that those sort of questions don't become necessary, because, I think, he will win substantially. HUMPHRYS: But, from what you've said, in this interview, he won't have cleared the air if it is not a very substantial, very impressive victory? LANG: Well, you can't tell the extent to which the air is cleared, until you see what the outcome of the Election is on Tuesday, until you see whether the Party comes together, as I believe it is doing and will do behind him and whether we maintain the momentum, that has appeared in the opinion polls, that has lifted us from the doldrums, where we've been for two or three years now and begins to look towards the next Election, now less than two years away. HUMPHRYS: You say you can't tell but you can, can you? I mean, you can perfectly well imagine the result of a victory that is less than what you say is necessary. That's to say very impressive. Substantial victory, you can imagine the effect that that would have. LANG: But, we're not in the business of imagining the nature of victory. We're in the business of working to the victory. HUMPHRYS: Indeed. LANG: We're confident that it is moving our way from the very strong start at the outset, when we were surprised by the spontaneous welling-up of support from Members of Parliament in large numbers and from the Constituency Associations, right at the very beginning. Instinctively, I think, everyone in our Party thought he was absolutely right to have taken this decision. We've moved from there and, now, we are working in great detail and will continue doing so, right up until the close of polls, to make sure that what we believe is happening is what actually happens on the day the votes are cast. HUMPHRYS: But, if what you believe is happening, doesn't happen. If you don't get the sort of victory that you say is necessary, then, the problem is that it will have failed to clear the air. It will have failed to still the dissent within the Party and the whole exercise will have blown up in your face, won't it? LANG: Well, let me tell you one reason why I think that is not a realistic scenario to consider at the present time. What has happened in the last week is that the strength of character of John Major, the man, has come through very strongly. Now, those of us who have worked very closely with him, over the last few years, have always known that he is a strong decisive character, with very sound judgment, with great analytical powers, with great person-to-person warmth - a man of great range of leadership skills. But, that hasn't always got through to the Electorate and in the face of some of the comments from some in the Press and some in politics, generally, that has been blurred. It has been blurred, partly, because we have been disunited as a party. What he has done is to demonstrate not only great integrity, in the way he's handled this campaign but, also, strong judgment and detailed understanding of all the nuances of policy that are so important, if you're actually going to make those policies work. It isn't a matter of-it's a matter of keeping one's feet firmly on the ground and that's the kind of politics that he's good at, as well as having the broader vision of where we're going. HUMPHRYS: And so you're saying that all that will have got across to the electorate, this relatively small number of Tory MPs, and therefore he will win big on Tuesday. LANG: I believe so. HUMPHRYS: And you believe so. But you've also said that if he doesn't, if there is not this impressive victory or at least this is the impression that I'm taking from what you've said, he is not going to have cleared the air and that's what is so crucially important here. Because that is a very ambitious task. LANG: But John I haven't said that. You've said that several times. I'm saying that he will win impressively on Tuesday and that that will clear the air and I've given you a number of reasons. HUMPHRYS: You've said rather more than that though, with respect, haven't you. You've said that he will need to win impressively, he will NEED that sort of victory if he's going to clear the air. LANG: Again, I think this is what you are saying - I am saying that he will win impressively and at the moment what is happening is that the electorate, the members of parliament are almost all at home in their constituencies, talking to their associations, taking soundings, reflecting on what has happened over the last week and looking forward beyond next Tuesday and deciding who best can unify us, behind whom can we best come together right across the party: the right, the left, all spectrums, all shades of opinion. And what has struck me most forcibly, particularly last week when the House of Commons was in session and the Prime Minister was meeting individuals and groups, is that the position that he has adopted and developed with colleagues in cabinet and throughout government, on all the major issues of the day in politics, the place he has adopted is the centre of gravity in party political terms. It is the area behind which everyone can unite. HUMPHRYS: And it's manifestly obvious isn't it that he must have this substantial victory, this impressive victory, there can't be any doubt about that can there? LANG: I think the very act of holding a leadership campaign, of laying one's job on the line, of putting one's party and one's country ahead of one's personal position is such that it will have the effect, that cathartic effect of making a step change in the structure of British politics and in the standing of the Conservative Party. HUMPHRYS: Only if it achieves the sort of victory that you've talked about. LANG: Well I'm telling you that I believe that we will achieve.... HUMPHRYS: Yes but you've also acknowledged in the course of this interview, that neither of us knows what those MPs and their constituencies at the moment are going to do, it may well be that they'll be a hundred and forty of them who decide for whatever reasons not to support the Prime Minister. LANG: We don't know and that is why we will carry on working right up until the close of polls but I'm telling you that I have a very good inclination as to what they are likely to do and what they are likely to think as a result of consulting with their associations. They are the people with whom they will be working in their constituencies together to win victory at the next General Election. HUMPHRYS: But it can't be true to say that the mere fact of having held this contest is itself going to clear the air. Indeed so far it's rather poisoned the air hasn't it, we've heard some rather nasty things being said from both sides about the different parties involved, it's exposed fishes within the party that in the past people like yourself had denied existed: "just a few small troublemakers making trouble out there" that's what you'd always said, now we know that that isn't the case, so therefore all the more important, as you yourself say, that there be this substantial victory. LANG: And I think from different strands of the party, there is recognition, increasingly, that the time now is to come together as a party, that the best thing to do now is to reinforce the authority of our Prime Minister and to end this contest decisively on Tuesday. That is the feeling that I get is being instilled in the minds of my colleagues now by their consultations in the constituency. HUMPHRYS: Reinforce the authority of the Prime Minister, in other words vote in very large numbers for the Prime Minister and if they fail to do that the gamble will not have paid off. LANG: It isn't a gamble. It isn't a gamble. It is a considered judgement as to what is the best interests of the party, the government and the country. I think everybody acknowledges that the Prime Minister was right to do that, to take that decision to allow the election to take place now rather than have a four or five month period of continuing mounting speculation, rumours spreading and so on, just as we had last year when nothing happened in the end and the year before. HUMPHRYS: What you're saying is, if I read you correctly, you know he will win big because he has to win big and if he doesn't that's the end of the Prime Minister. LANG: Those are your words. I believe that he will win big and I believe that the mood of the country as well as the mood of the party is that it is desirable to give the Prime Minister an impressive endorsement so that he can go on delivering the increasingly successful policies that we have right across the whole field of government. HUMPHRYS: Ian Lang, thank you very much. LANG: Thank you. ...oooOooo...