................................................................................ ON THE RECORD RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 8.10.95
................................................................................ JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good afternoon. The Tories hold their conference this week - and it couldn't have got off to a worse start. For the first time ever a Conservative MP has defected directly to Labour. I'll be asking Michael Heseltine if it's too late for the Tories to dig themselves out of their hole. That's after the News read by JENNIE BOND. NEWS HUMPHRYS: Kim Catcheside reporting. The question is, of course, can anything, however radical, save the Conservative's bacon, especially now that Mr Howarth has wielded the carving knife? I've been talking to Michael Heseltine about that - but first - what are they going to do about Mr. Blair and his so-called "new" Labour Party and its appeal to the Conservative centre ground? MICHAEL HESELTINE MP: I don't recognise that situation. We're going to have a Conference which is going to concentrate on real policies about real people in the way that the audience out there will understand. We've just had a Conference which is all about avoiding the real issues and glossing them over with words to give an impression of action for which there's no justification. HUMPHRYS: Well none-the-less, it seems to be working. They're more confident, they're more united, they appear to be more moderate than they've ever before. Have they got you going? HESELTINE: Well you may say that as an aggressive way of introducing the interview but it doesn't bear any relationship to the facts as I know them. The fact is there's a new mood of confidence in the Conservative Party and we're just going to have an extremely good Conference and we're going to be talking about issues that matter to people. We're going to be talking about policies that matter to people and you will see announcements during the course of this week on the things that people are deeply concerned about. The sort of things that were being raised in your interviews earlier in this programme - what are the issues that are worrying to people. Self-evidently, law and order, fraud, unemployment, the tax situation, well the tax has to wait until the Budget to see what the Chancellor can do but on the issues, on fraud, law and order, unemployment, you will see announcements this week which people are longing to hear. HUMPHRYS: Come back to some of that in a minute. But you wouldn't deny that Tony Blair had a marvellous week. Not a single vote against the leadership from the floor of the Conference, unprecedented. HESELTINE: Unprecedented from an unprecedented low base, if you think about the normal Labour Party Conferences they range somewhere around the level of political farce. This particular Conference has been well stage managed without any shadow of a doubt. But within all that that there are two factors. First, a deep unease within the Labour Party itself about what Tony Blair is saying and outside the Labour Party a growing awareness that they'd ever make any statements of policy which are going to change anything for anybody on a serious scale. Behind that, of course, is the real Labour agenda and this last week has seen some extremely worrying situations. There's first of all what we already knew, the stitch up of the unions behind closed doors. Secondly, we have this extraordinary deal with British Telecom which if I had done it as a Minister of the Crown would have brought the national media down on me like a ton of bricks. And then you get this extraordinary now developing technique of the hidden persuaders ringing up every journalist in sight, trying to bully the BBC into how they handle their news programmes and this is all in opposition. Just imagine what these people would be like in government. HUMPHRYS: Well the message doesn't..the message you're delivering doesn't seem to be the one that's getting across. They seem to be seizing the centre ground. Mr Howarth, Alan Howarth, former Conservative Party Minister..former Conservative Minister has now joined the Labour Party. HESELTINE: Well it's interesting I have a minister in my government, a very good minister who was a member of the Labour Party so you get these individual decisions. HUMPHRYS: This has never happened before. HESELTINE: Let us...well I've just described, I have a Labour Member of Parliament...ex-Labour Member of Parliament who is a Minister of the Conservative Government. So you do have these situations.. HUMPHRYS: But we've never ever had a Conservative MP going right across to the Labour Party. HESELTINE: But the important thing is the issues and I think I understand Alan Howarth's position and it is a position which many people understand. There are big issues in the Welfare State from which the Conservative Party, self-evidently, has a proud tradition in creating a very large part of that Welfare State, but there are abuses and people know that, there's too much fraud, there's too many people getting away with things and we are pre-occupied to try and deal with some of these issues. But the public want them dealt with, just as they want law and order dealt with. Now there are people in all political parties who will subscribe to the broad ethos of a Welfare State but won't face up to the realities of the abuses that goes on within that situation. HUMPHRYS: But you say you understand Mr Howarth's position. HESELTINE: I understand his position because he's a member of the Conservative Party - or was a member of the Conservative Party - and we are a broad church but the fact is that he's out of touch with what the public want and the public want these very difficult issues about law and order, about fraud, about unemployment abuse. They want these things dealt with and you're going to see a Conference, a Conservative Conference next week, that addresses real issues with real policies, quite unlike what you've seen last week. HUMPHRYS: So you understand his position rather than feeling betrayed by his departure? HESELTINE: I personally have worked with him in the Conservative Party, I know, admire and have a huge historic respect for the Conservative Party, it embraces all opinions and I've always had one rule, I never get abusive about colleagues or former colleagues, they make their own decisions, each one of them. This is a huge party, a huge historic party and it serves no purpose in denigrating people because they happen to make a judgement, which, in my view, is quite wrong. But he's free to make it. HUMPHRYS: But he's made it on the basis that the
Conservative is no longer the 'one nation party'; that is the Labour Party - that is the 'one nation party'. HESELTINE: That is, of course, to completely fall into the trap that the Labour Party is trying to put forward. If you ask: what is the 'one nation party?' - it is the party that can draw the whole nation behind a set of policies. Crime: it is the Conservative Party that has produced a situation where we have the largest fall in crime in forty years and why? - because we took the decisions to be tougher on sentences, to build more prisons and as the Sun newspaper, very articulately said, as we've got more of these offenders in prison the crime rates have fallen. Now that took tough policy. There are people in the Conservative Party who are anxious we may have gone too far but in order to be a 'one nation' Tory today the public want us to go further, that is the misjudgement that Alan Howarth has made. Take the whole issue of fraud in the Welfare State. I apologise to no-one for the enormous contribution that the Conservatives have made to the building of the Welfare State but there is fraud in there and we have to tackle it and people want it tackled. HUMPHRYS: But that's not what he's talking about, he's talking about cutting the Welfare State.... HESELTINE: But I'm sorry, I know what Alan's concerns are because I've heard him talk about them in private in the House of Commons. He's concerned, for example, about the Job Seekers' Allowance, which....(interruption) well of course a lot of people are concerned about that. What is that all about? That is about saying that if you are receiving Unemployment Benefit the old principles upon which Beveridge founded the concept in the first place is that you are available to work and increasingly people are saying, not about everybody who is unemployed, not about the short term people changing jobs, but there are too many people who are simply getting away with unemployment benefit and perhaps moonlighting and they want something done about it. Someone like Alan Howarth and the Labour Party, they talk about these problems but they will do nothing about them. Now we believe something has got to be done about them. HUMPHRYS: You say dismissively someone like Alan Howarth. I mean here is an intelligent man who's been a loyal member of the Conservative Party. He was respected enough to have been made a member of the government, and yet here he is saying that you have lost it, you have lost this one nation thing that you must have if you were to govern the country, and, here's the important point from your point of view: Labour has it, Labour, let me quote him: "rigorously clearsighted about the realities of governing". That's what Mr Howarth believes. HESELTINE: Well, let me just take some of these rigorous, clearsighted views. This week, the Labour Party have announced getting rid of the Assisted Places Scheme for kids - bright kids in inner cities... HUMPHRYS: Because he wants to spend the money on reducing class sizes... HESELTINE: ...Seventy thousand of them are going to be pushed back into the unacceptable standards of Inner City comprehensives. I cannot think of a more vicious doctrinal attack upon the opportunities of bright young kids than that. How Alan can talk about that in terms of abandoning the essential one nation role of the Tory Party I fail to understand. HUMPHRYS: Well, because his priority is to get more money into Education, as he has said. HESELTINE: No, it isn't getting more money into Education. It is about extending Nursery Education, which we are already doing. HUMPHRYS: But, but he is not alone in this issue, and on that matter he's got a hundred, he said this morning, he's got a hundred or so teachers in his constituency being sacked. The fact is, he is not alone is he? He talks about there being another thirty or forty members of Parliament - Conservative Members of Parliament - who share his views, share his unease. HESELTINE: I wholly reject that. HUMPHRYS: How do you know? He must be closer to the backbenchers than you. HESELTINE: No, not at all. I happen to know my backbenchers extremely well. I spend a lot of time talking to them. They spend a lot of time talking to me, and to a large number of other colleagues. I, for example, was at a private dining club with Alan Howarth not very long ago before the House rose, where a similar group of people with many of the views that he would have held in the Conservative Party. There was in no way the sort of opposition to Government position as was expressed by Alan Howarth amongst that group. So, we keep very closely in touch. HUMPHRYS: Better not talk about that sort of thing or they'll accuse you of getting involved in conspiracies. But let- HESELTINE: No, the only conspiracy is Mr Blair and British Telecom's or Mr Blair and the Trade Unions, or Alistair Campbell trying to rough up the journalists. HUMPHRYS: Peter Temple Morris, another backbencher of the centre left, he believes, and he said so this morning that what Mr Howarth has done is not a sort of one-off bizarre event. He says it is a symptom, and let me quote to you: "a symptom of the strain in the centre left of the party". Not at all suprised by it. HESELTINE: I think that you have strains in all political parties. You've just probably been at Brighton and everybody knows that the Labour Party is strained to breaking point by-. HUMPHRYS: I didn't see any MPs departing the Labour for the Tory fold. HESELTINE: So, your quotation is about Peter Temple-Morris talking about the strains within a party, and we've had during the summer Labour MP after Labour MP castigating the leadership of the Labour Party. We had Roy Hattersley at Brighton making a vicious attack. HUMPHRYS: He disagreed, he disagreed with their Education policy, but the vote was put to the floor of the Conference and carried overwhelmingly. HESELTINE: But let's understand and be mature about democracy. You have..they are..all parties are coalitions, and it's ridiculous to pick on one particular person and say they represent some great movement within the Party. The fact is, the trick of politics is to find a coalition powerful enough to attract popular support to form a government, and you always find differing views within it, in all Parties. HUMPHRYS: Let's not talk about individuals then, let's talk about this latest poll that there's been, of Conservative Party supporters, I emphasise Conservative Party supporters. Two-fifth of those people who were interviewed said they could see no hope of a Tory victory next time. A third of them said the Labour Party had the best ideas. A third of them said Blair would make the best Prime Minister, those are Labour Party supporters. HESELTINE: Conservative Party supporters. HUMPHRYS: Conservative Party supporters! HESELTINE: I don't want to do your job for you, I couldn't do it as well as you, but we must help you in every way we can. HUMPHRYS: You're kind. HESELTINE: And give me the poll figures that are equivalent to that in the period before the nineteen-ninety election, or say in nineteen-eighty-six. Any of the downturn, just show me, and you'll find exactly the same sort of trend of opinion. HUMPHRYS: Well, you may say that. I don't recall that happening in support of Neil Kinnock, do you? When it was Mrs Thatcher against Neil Kinnock. When it was John Major against Neil Kinnock? HESELTINE: I can tell you that at that time you would have found opinion polls reflecting the views of Conservative supporters which chose certain subjects which you'd have thought the Conservatives were strong on, where we appeared weak. And then you come to the Election campaign, you come to the run up, you come to the battle itself, to the focussing of minds, to the improvements in the economy that took place before those elections, and people's minds focus. What you're dealing with understandably - no criticism - is the classic mid-term difficulties of Government, exacerbated this time across the world by one of the most severe and long term recessions that we've seen, and every government - every government - of our sort in the world has had the same sort of trouble as we've had. HUMPHRYS: Well I'll tell what I don't recollect last time. I don't recollect people like Lord Rothermere saying he could see his newspapers supporting the Labour Party at the next Election, I don't recollect that do you? HESELTINE: No, I wonder if he's told his editors? HUMPHRYS: Yes he has. Well he's, he's certainly told David English and David English takes the same view. HESELTINE: I happen to read the papers of Lord Rothermere, and it's quite difficult to see how the views you've expressed are compatible with what his editors are saying day after day after day. HUMPHRYS: I hope. ....... saying as well. HESELTINE: Well, would you just hang back and see if David English is out there on the night campaigning for the Labour Party. It would be something of a surprise to me, and I suspect to David English. HUMPHRYS: But they're nibbling, they're nibbling HESELTINE: They're teasing. HUMPHRYS: Do you think that's all it is? HESELTINE: They're teasing. HUMPHRYS: Something else I didn't see the last time around was important business people coming out on behalf of the Tony Blair, or indeed you mentioned British Telecom earlier doing deals, doing these sort of sweetheart deals with the leader of the Labour Party. You may rubbish the deal, but, but what it does is it sends a signal doesn't it? It sends a signal that says people like Sir Iain Vallance, the chairman of British Telecom are saying: "I can do business with this man" to use that famous phrase. HESELTINE: Yes, it does send a signal about what the Labour Party is about, about deals behind closed doors, which if I did it, it would be illegal. It would have brought the wrath of Fleet Street down upon me. No consultation, no interest to all those small companies that are trying to get into market, no... HUMPHRYS: There are lots of big foreign companies trying to get into the market and British Telecom couldn't compete against them, weren't allowed to. HESELTINE: But I helped British Telecom get into the American market, and I don't remember anybody saying: "Oh well we shouldn't go to America with British Telecom, as it's a British company should stay here. I mean we've got to be grown up. We're living in a world market place and we're now trying to attract and succeeding to attract massive foreign investment into this country, and every time someone says it's a British company, as though somehow we have a policy only about British companies here- HUMPHRYS: But, I thought, our concern was to help these companies? HESELTINE: What they're really saying is:to Siemens, to Samsung, to Goldstar, to Jaguar - which is an American-owned company: "Well look, there's something different about you, you're a bit beyond the pale". If that is the attitude, then I tell you that will prejudice the fact that we're getting forty per cent of all the inward investment coming into the European Union. In this country. HUMPHRYS: What I was talking about, the reason I raised it was the signal that it sends, that here is business looking at the Labour Party, looking at Mr Blair, and saying: Actually next time, perhaps they're right for Britain". HESELTINE: Well I think what business actually has spotted and the editorials in the papers reflect this is that Mr Blair's naive. He's fallen for a line which British Telecom has been trying to peddle around the place and everybody knows this. HUMPHRYS: That's going back to the specifics
now, I'm talking about the general. HESELTINE: Oh, no, no, but the specific is everything because this is a deal for British Telecom, about British Telecom, against their competitors who were never consulted. HUMPHRYS: BT's not the only company that finds Mr Blair 'the modern', 'the new modern Labour Party' attractive. HESELTINE: Are there more secret deals I don't know about? HUMPHRYS: Neither do I, of course but we can't assume that...but, but... HESELTINE: If this is the way we're going to run this country, that politicians are going to do deals.. HUMPHRYS: Ah but you're not suggesting to me that every business leader who has ever had anything nice to say about Mr Blair, or new Labour has done some sort of secret deal with him, are you? HESELTINE: You're approaching British Telecom, who have done a secret deal. That is why one suspects they're appearing to say nice things because they've conned him and they've conned him at the expense of the British consumer, who could find British Telecoms with some sort of quasi-monopolistic position and then charges for connections and services increased against the regulatory regime we have. And if it had happened by a Minister of the Crown, as I repeat, you would have crucified us. HUMPHRYS: But, the roots of your problem - the roots of the Conservative Party's problem at the moment, goes deeper than whatever effect the Labour Party may be having on you. There is, after sixteen years, of Conservative rule, a sense in the middle class that they feel much less secure than they have ever felt. Now, that may or may not be your fault. There are international events affecting this as well of course and everybody understands that. But that is the reality of it, isn't it? HESELTINE: Across the world, that is true because the competitive thrust of the market place is bringing about change, at an ever increasing speed. Interestingly, in talking about the IT revolution, which Blair was talking about and which we are creating here, what you are really talking about is the process of change. More insecurity, more instability. But he didn't tell you about that. What he said: oh, no, what we're going to do is IT because that's attention-grabbing. I have to introduce the changes and face the insecurity. He doesn't tell you about that. HUMPHRYS: But, that's the problem, isn't it? You see, there isn't very much you can do about it. We're seeing house values collapsing, we're seeing that people no longer have a job for life. We're seeing that they can't look forward to retirement because they might have to sell their home to pay for it. All these sorts of things if you add them altogether, feeds the sense of insecurity and the effect on you is that people say: look, we've had a Conservative Government for sixteen years, perhaps it'll be different next time around. That's what... HESELTINE: Well, they said all that after thirteen years and it, of course, didn't turn out to have any substance at all because people judge on the issues. So, when we get to the Election campaign, let's take your premise and I don't actually disagree with it because it's a worldwide phenomenon about the insecurity based on change. Why do you think people are going to vote for a Labour Party which is going to impose the social contract on the companies of this country and make them less competitive? In other words, more insecurity. Why do you think they're going to vote for a Labour Party which is going to give privileges back to the trade unions, in order to shackle the bosses of the country, to make them less able to run their companies, to make them less competitive and therefore destroy more jobs? HUMPHRYS: Well I suppose the answer to that is, as Mrs Dover said in our film, because they don't think it's going to be any worse under a Labour government. HESELTINE: No, the answer is that they're not going to...because by then, the arguments will have focused. HUMPHRYS: Well, let me give you another reason why they might and that's tax. You've got to make people feel that they are better off now than they were. And, again, quoting Mrs Dover, they don't feel they're better off. HESELTINE: Well, you put this in the right context. By the time of the Election that will be an important issue. Now, everybody knows... HUMPHRYS: Can you do anything about it between now and then that's...? HESELTINE: This is a matter for the Budget judgment and I'm not going to anticipate that. But, nobody seriously believes that a Labour Government will be searching for the economies in Public Expenditure, that this Government is and nobody on earth can believe that the Labour Party would use any money that they could find to reduce taxes. HUMPHRYS: Yes, but that's not the issue. HESELTINE: Oh, it is the issue! The issue is whether.... HUMPHRYS: The issue is whether you can make people feel better off between now and the Election. That's the issue. HESELTINE: This is the judgment people will have to make at the Election. Do they really believe that a Labour Party, which is wholly sold out to Public Sector trade unions is going to cut Expenditure. They're going to increase Expenditure. HUMPHRYS: Yeah, but they may feel.....why look at a crystal ball when we can read the book? You know, we've seen what's happened to us, under the Tories. We've seen our taxes go up. HESELTINE: So, we look back from an Election time, not forward from where we are now because the judgments will be made then. Now, I'm not going to, in any way- HUMPHRYS: Are you telling me... Of course, you're not telling me..... HESELTINE: I cannot prejudge the Budget. You know that but we know, in the same way, that you asked me the questions that there are vital questions at stake in the Budget and in the Budget in the year after. We have to address those issues but Ken Clarke is absolutely clear, we will do nothing to prejudice the present economic success, which is delivering one of the most exciting economies that this country has seen in my lifetime with rising investment, rising exports, rising productivity, excellent industrial relations and an enormous flow of inward investment into this country - real prosperity for tomorrow. HUMPHRYS: All of that may well be true but you have got this time - as far as the middle classes, in particular, are concerned; your natural supporters - this time it's no good promising because they've heard promises before and as far as Income Tax...taxation is concerned, have been let down. This time, you've got to deliver, haven't you? HESELTINE: But that's why this Conference is so
important and why the Budget is important and why the next few months are obviously important. I repeat what I said, at the beginning of the programme: whilst we will not obviously deal with the Budget this week, on the issues, which are also of major concern, to the British people, these whole issues of law and order and fraud and unemployment and people getting away with things, you will see real announcements by Ministers in power relevant to what people are concerned about. That will be the difference between the Conservative Conference and the Labour Conference. HUMPHRYS: Ah but you see, you can't put - oh I take your point you can't of course tell us what Ken Clarke is going to do in the Budget next month but you're going to have to deliver. You're going to have to deliver on all sorts of things, on a series of announcements about law and order or whatever it may be, is it going to do what people need? HESELTINE: Well, you say that. HUMPHRYS: They are telling us. It's not me saying. It's 'them' telling us. HESELTINE: I disagree. No, no they are saying: we want announcements, results, actions. HUMPHRYS: They're not saying: we want announcements, they're saying: we want more money in our pockets. It's pretty straightforward. HESELTINE: Well, if you're talking about tax, but I'm now talking about things we can deal with at the Conservative Party Conference. HUMPHRYS: You can't do anything by making an announcement. HESELTINE: You can announce decisions which you then implement and I think you will find if we were sitting here next week that the people will recognise that the Government is grappling with some of those issues which matter profoundly to people. HUMPHRYS: But aren't they more likely to say: hang on, I thought they'd been grappling with them for the last sixteen years. HESELTINE: And you will see that we take law and order. The biggest fall in crime for forty years. More policemen on the beat. So we are grappling with them. Maybe, we'll be able to say things next week which are relevant to going further. That's for Michael Howard. HUMPHRYS: But you've just pointed to one issue that of course concerns a lot of people. HESELTINE: But it's at the top of the agenda. HUMPHRYS: Well with the greatest of respect, I wouldn't suggest to you that at the moment, that that is the top of the agenda. The top of the agenda... HESELTINE: Now, you may be talking to a different audience than the one I talk to. Wherever I go, people are talking about these issues: the law and order, fraud, unemployment. HUMPHRYS: But, you know what wins elections, at the end of it all, is whether people feel that they're going to be better off under this Government than they were under another government. That's the issue that decides elections. HESELTINE: I don't disagree with that view but they judge that at the time and we have got a long time to go to the next Election. HUMPHRYS: How are you going to deliver on that? HESELTINE: I believe you will find - and all the forecasts now indicate this - that people's real living standards are now going to rise. That's what the forecast... HUMPHRYS: I don't know that the...I was thinking about the IMF, I mean the IMF says that you're actually going to...the forecast is that growth is going to come down from what three point two to two point six per cent..... HESELTINE: Two point nine actually.. HUMPHRYS: Two point seven per cent I think it is.. HESELTINE: Well it's..I thought it was two point nine but the fact is that it is by British historic standards a high growth rate.. HUMPHRYS: It may be. HESELTINE: And it's coming on top of existing growth rates. HUMPHRYS: It may be but it's their view that now is not the time to cut taxes and indeed... HESELTINE: It depends on what we do about public expenditure. HUMPHRYS: Well, so what are you going to do about public expenditure? HESELTINE: That's the Budget judgement....John, you know as well as...I cannot anticipate the Budget, it's not possible to do it, I wouldn't try to do it, but those are issues for November and everybody understands that. We are today looking at public expenditure in the light of the decisions we take there, Ken Clarke will decide what he can do about the tax levels for the year ahead and that is something that can only be done on the particular Budget day but the fact is we are in a position and all the independent and international commentators recognise it, where the British economy is healthier today than probably for twenty or thirty years... HUMPHRYS: But you recognise that this time, more than any other time before, because the last time you got in a promise, this time you recognise, you accept that you've got to deliver and if that means, if I understand you correctly, if that means more real cuts, real cuts in public expenditure so that you can meet those tax cuts, that's what's going to have to happen and that will happen is what you're telling me. HESELTINE: We will make a judgement about all these issues because whilst everybody is very keen on cuts in public expenditure you have to judge the merits. We are not going to ride rough-shod into any direction, we will weigh up the merits of each argument, each particular spending area and come to what we think are proper and balanced views. HUMPHRYS: You haven't got much time have you? HESELTINE: Yes, we've got the proper amount of time, we've already started, the process is well underway and, of course, as a member of the Committee, I know much more about it than I am prepared to tell you and it would be quite improper if I in anyway moved from that position. We are going to address this issue with the full rigour that is required - the outome - that must wait for the Budget. But I don't disagree with you that if we failed to deal with this issue, if we failed to regard these matters with the reflection of what the public want and what we as a Government want, that would not be the best way to commend ourselves to the people in the General Election, we know all that but we have a long time still ahead in which to demonstrate to people that what we are determined to achieve is on the agenda. HUMPHRYS: And in that long time, as you describe it, I wouldn't have thought it was all that long but anyway, sixteen, eighteen months away.... HESELTINE: Well into 1997.. HUMPHRYS: Whatever it may be in that time you are going to deliver real cuts, the sort of cuts we haven't seen until now. HESELTINE: No, you are putting words into my mouth... HUMPHRYS: And deliver..and deliver... HESELTINE: What I am saying is.... HUMPHRYS: And deliver on your promises. HESELTINE: What I am saying is that that is an agenda item for the Budget.... HUMPHRYS: But you are going to deliver on your promises, that's what you are saying? HESELTINE: I didn't say anything about what we were going to do other than we will address these matters in the Budget, I'm not prepared to be moved on that... HUMPHRYS: But you'll deliver on your promises? HESELTINE: However, we are as pre-occupied as the public are to get this matter right and we are the only Party that will get this matter right. HUMPHRYS: Michael Heseltine, thank you very much indeed. ...oooOooo...