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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Tony Blair has given into
the pressure and decided there will not be elections on May the third,
that's what William Hague said he should do. So that's good news on the
face of it for the Conservatives. But, no sooner has Mr Blair ruled out
May, than the Conservatives are saying, or some of them, he should rule
out June too. So, are they just playing politics with this. John Redwood
is the Chairman of the Party's campaign unit.
Mr Redwood, Tony Blair
has done what you urged, so why aren't you applauding instead of carping?
JOHN REDWOOD: Well Mr Blair has dithered
and he has dithered at a time of national crisis. William Hague made a
very sensible and clear statement, all the time the rural economy is in
crisis, all the time the livestock industry is up against these terrible
pressures, the Prime Minister should concentrate on that. How does the
Prime Minister know that's all going to be cleared up by June the seventh.
I and my colleagues would be delighted if it's all gone by June the seventh
but it doesn't look very likely at the moment.
HUMPHRYS: So when would you call
the election?
REDWOOD: The election timing should
be settled, the General Election, once the national crisis is clearly under
control and on the way or even better when it is over. There's no need
to have a General Election until another year has gone by.
HUMPHRYS: What about the local
or council...county council elections?
REDWOOD: Well the Conservative
Party did say a long time ago that they should be deferred, at least in
the effected areas, if he wants to defer them in all areas, well will he
please get on with it so that all the council candidates know where they
stand....
HUMPHRYS: ...deferred to when?
REDWOOD: ...from the point of view
of our party interest, we would like to get on with the Local Elections.
We think we are going to win a lot of seats and we have a lot of things
we want to say to people but we don't want to go ahead in areas where it's
impossible to campaign fairly and sensibly and if the government comes
forward with a decent proposal for delay across the country, well then
we will look at that and may even support it. But we haven't finally decided
what would be the best form for the Local Elections, we want to see what
the government's proposals are.
HUMPHRYS: But when you said defer,
a decent time and all that, until when?
REDWOOD: Well I think we need to
look at the state of the crisis and how quickly the government thinks it
can get on top of it. It's up to the government to tell us, honestly, how
bad the crisis now is, we don't feel we have been getting the whole truth
out of them. They need to explain why they have been so slow in handling
this twin rural crisis, not just the crisis in the livestock industry,
but the crisis of no visitors going to many parts of the countryside at
all and nearly bankrupting a lot of other businesses. How long they think
it's going to take them to get on top of that and then we can come to a
sensible judgement on when and how elections can be fought.
HUMPHRYS: Right, so you're not
saying no elections so long as there's a single case of foot-and-mouth
in any English county.
REDWOOD: No we're not saying that.
We're saying the thing needs to be under visible control and we need to
know that the crisis is well on the way to being resolved.
HUMPHRYS: But you would have to
put forward, well you say you can't put forward a date because nobody can
do that. I mean what Tony Blair has to do, presumably, when he finally
tells us himself, he has to put forward a date doesn't he?
REDWOOD: Well I think he does on
the Local Elections yes and that is the Prime Minister's job. He is in
possession of all the information, we don't have all the information about
the state of the crisis...
HUMPHRYS: Well we know what's happening...
REDWOOD: ..or how quickly he's
going to get on top of it. We fear that he's not getting on top of it quickly
enough. The Conservative Party has been demanding stronger and quicker
action throughout this crisis and belatedly, a week or two later, the government
picks up some of our ideas and tries to do them, often too late for them
to be successful and I hope we don't stay in that position for much longer.
I hope now that Mr Blair has partly made up his mind on the election, he
can now put his effort in, day by day, to trying to combat these twin rural
crises because he is facing the possibility of bankruptcy of a very large
number of rural businesses and it's no good having Michael Meacher on the
telly waving a couple of wellington boots around thinking they've done
the job if the foot baths are closed, if a lot of the visitor attractions
are closed, if all the animal attractions are closed, if there are funeral
pyres burning in the fields it will be Labour's cruel spring. It will be
the spring of discontent and no amount of spinning is going to change that.
HUMPHRYS: So, given that you have,
as you say, offered advice in the past and given that we do know what's
going on out there pretty much anyway and we can talk to the Chief Vet
and all the rest of it, just as anybody else can, you must have some idea
of a date for the County Council elections?
REDWOOD: Well, we would say that
in the affected areas that they have to be delayed until you have a clearer
idea of where the crisis is going and the essential thing is to get a grip
because this awful poisoned Spring is causing so much damage and it's probably
to going to trigger difficulties for the economy as a whole. If a lot
of rural businesses get into serious trouble and it looks as if they are
going to, on top of a Stock Market crash, on top of a telecoms crash,
partly created by Brown over-taxing the telecoms companies, it doesn't
make a very pretty picture and you may have seen that people's optimism
about the economic prospects has taken a plunge in the last few days and
I'm not surprised. It needs the whole-hearted concentration of the government
to try and tackle these problems, some of which they have created.
HUMPHRYS: But given that we can't
until things sort themselves out, hold elections in those two crucial counties,
in Cumbria and Devon, what about County Council elections, a date for them
in the rest of England. I mean, you must be able to give us some idea
of when you think they ought to be?
REDWOOD: Well I don't know what
my colleagues are going to agree. There are several options...
HUMPHRYS: What do you think?
REDWOOD: You could say that there
should be County elections in the rest of England quite soon...
HUMPHRYS: June the seventh for
instance?
REDWOOD: ...and leave out the two
or three counties that are very badly affected and put in a different date
for them, or you could say that we should wait until the government is
confident that the crisis is on the wane and then settle the date for the
whole country. I would like to see what my colleagues agree, William Hague
hasn't yet pronounced on this and I'd like to see what the government's
proposals are. But we need some certainty in this and it should be the
government that is offering the lead in this because they are trying to
handle the crisis. I mean how many more sheep and cows are they going
to kill before they say that they need to use vaccination as well? And
are they going to allow all the farmers, in areas which don't yet have
the disease, to move some of their animals because the animal welfare problems
in some of those fields are appalling. There are sheep now in fields that
are flooded or with no grass, they're not allowed to move them and so they
have terrible welfare problems and I think it is high time the government
recognised that.
HUMPHRYS: Do you think we should
start vaccinating now then? I mean, tomorrow, immediately?
REDWOOD: Well, I think vaccination
should be an option for farmers. I don't know why they've dithered for
so long over that. Everything about this crisis, they've done too little,
too late. They've now said that vaccines are available, we're told there
is a row going on between the Prime Minister, who is meant to want vaccination,
and MAFF that doesn't want vaccination and meanwhile there are people with
rare breeds, flocks they've built up over many years and they cannot protect
them properly and they are desperate about it.
HUMPHRYS: Just a very quick thought.
Haven't you rather shot yourselves in the foot politically. May the third
might have been rather good for you. The longer it goes on now, the worse
it might get for you, once the problem is sorted, people might say, well
fine, let's go out and vote for the government.
REDWOOD: Well look some of us are
more worried about sorting out this dreadful national crisis. I don't
know what the political effects would have been of going against that background,
but what I do know is that we have a rural industry in collapse and people
being horrified by the scenes of the funeral pyres and the mounting carcasses
and the incompetence and the bumbledom in handling it all and let's get
a grip on that and try and sort our country out. The transport doesn't
work, the schools don't work, the hospitals don't work and now the countryside
itself is in carnage.
HUMPHRYS: John Redwood, thank you
very much indeed.
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