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JOHN HUMPHRYS: When On The Record first
appeared on the air, a long time ago, the Conservatives were the natural
party of government. We pretty well all believed that. Even if they lost
the odd election it would be only a matter of time (and not a very long
time) before they'd be back in power. They were the most successful political
party in Europe. You won't find many people saying that today. Things could
hardly be different. Two hammerings at two successive elections - and you'll
get very good odds indeed if you bet on them winning the next time. The
polls suggest they haven't a chance. So what's gone wrong and how do they
get out of this mess? I've been talking this morning to their leader Iain
Duncan Smith near his home in Buckinghamshire. I suggested to him that
they were making a fundamental mistake. Instead of competing with Labour
for the middle ground in British politics they should remember what they
are: Conservatives - and develop their policies accordingly. Tax, for
instance, aren't they meant to be the tax cutting party.
IAIN DUNCAN SMITH: Well there's no question in
my mind about where we go. The truth is that we as a party, the Conservative
Party, believes fundamentally that people are better off, society is better off,
the enterprise economy works better if taxes are lower than they are at
the present state under the Labour Government. But one question has to
be raised, is how you go about achieving an objective which is both smaller
government and lower taxation, if you haven't yet reformed public services.
And so, when I've talked about over the last year, putting the base in
place, it's about saying how we will reform the public services: health,
education and law and order, which the government has fundamentally failed
to do. Once you understand that, you understand how much money they need,
once you understand that, then you can say this is what therefore is left
over for how we then adjust taxation. And that's the logical step which
allows us to go to the electorate with them saying, okay, I understand
their position, I understand how that works, it makes sense to me. Not
just screaming tax cuts without having any logic to it.
HUMPHRYS: Well, it may be logical but
some of your own people, don't seem to quite understand it, if that is
the case. Tim Yeo for instance, one of your front-benchers, he was talking
about business the other day, they want us to stake out ..I'm quoting him
"they want us to stake out our tax cutting credentials now".
DUNCAN SMITH: He's right. Business wants
to know, quite rightly, how we will reduce the overall burdens which have
risen dramatically on them, but I'm sure you read two speeches I made quite
recently John, it's not a test by the way, but I made a speech...
HUMPHRYS: Read everything you say...
DUNCAN SMITH: I made a speech to the IOD
and a speech to the CBI and I laid out clearly what had happened over the
last five to six years how the tax burden had risen dramatically over ten
billion pounds extra in tax alone...
HUMPHRYS: You didn't say you were
going to cut it.
DUNCAN SMITH: What I did indicate to them
was our purpose was to lower the burden of regulation and tax on business.
The question remains how we are going to do that and how at the same time
we reform public services. Michael Howard is in agreement with that. What
we said all along is, no-one will believe a word we say unless we are credible
on reforming public services. The big failure for this government is that
they are pouring vast sums of taxpayers' money into unreformed services.
The services aren't improving but the burdens are rising on business so
what we've got to say is there is a way to reform public services to make
them look more like services in Australia, in France, in other countries
that have private and voluntary services involved in the running of the
public services, not as they are here which is wholly government run and
government financed.
HUMPHRYS: And what Edward Leigh,
another very senior Conservative, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee,
says to that is that it is fine to talk about public services, but the
reason people vote Tory is to pay less tax and you do not say, you are
going to pay less tax under a Tory government.
DUNCAN SMITH: You again would have read
the speech I made to the Conservative Way Forward, where I laid out what
we are and Edward agreed with this and so did the others. I said the purpose
of a Conservative Government is to reduce the role of the central-state,
to push power down so that people at the other end, parents, teachers,
patients, doctors, can take greater control over what they do. To do that,
we will take power out of Whitehall, so that means reducing the role of
central government, giving people greater freedom. We also recognise in
that you will want to give them greater power and that involves giving
them and leaving them with more of their own money.
HUMPHRYS: Give them back their
money to let them spend it themselves, that's what Tories have always said,
but you are not now saying it.
DUNCAN SMITH: Oh I am. What I saying John
is quite clearly this. First, what we have to show to the British people,
because otherwise it is incredible that we actually know how to reform
those public services so that we can get that power down to people, and
in doing it we can reduce the bureaucracy and the burdens that allow us
therefore to free them up and that then tells them how much money they
will have for their own. And that's the logic John. You know as well as
I do, that if I sat here now a year after, or just over a year over I was
elected as Leader and said: I know, we know how much money the government
is going to taxing you within three or four years from now. And therefore
I can tell you specifically how we are going to cut that. That would be
incredible and I don't believe that that is the game. Important for us
to say, we've made the calculations, this is how it works, this is how
the public services will be reformed and improved and this is therefore
how we will...
HUMPHRYS: The trouble is and the
reason I started off saying it's confused and all that is because then
you hear somebody like Oliver Letwin saying, as he did to me on this programme:
we might even have to put up taxes.
DUNCAN SMITH: Do you know what Oliver was
saying - quite right and what he was actually indicating there was all
governments have to deal with what they are left by the previous government
and what he is saying is, the way the government is going, his worry, our
fear, is right now is just beginning to emerge. The government is out of
control of the public finances. For example, during the pre-Budget statement
the Chancellor admitted only months after the Budget that he'd got his
calculations wrong and borrowing was going to rise by twenty billion in
the next year. When we asked him this specific question, we then said what
about the way in which he's underwritten the Railtrack episode. Now we
discover that's an extra twenty-one billion. He never even mentioned that.
Our concern is that the borrowing may be even higher than he has indicated.
What Oliver is saying is that we don't know yet what their specific position
will be by the end of this Parliament but we remain a Party that believes
fundamentally that lower tax regimes, low tax economies are enterprise
economies and develop more money. That's the key thing and that is the
principle...
HUMPHRYS: To add on to everything
that you have just said. There is this question of how much the government
intends to spend, another seventeen billion pounds above inflation. Let's
assume an election comes about in about three years from now. In that year
they will spending another seventeen billion pounds above inflation. Now
you yourself have said that is a huge increase, therefore, you've been
quoting logic to me throughout this interview, logic says you would not
spend that much.
DUNCAN SMITH: We've already said, we are
not matching their spending plans. I was honest about that four months
ago, five months ago because I said...
HUMPHRYS: So you'd cut it?
DUNCAN SMITH: I said they can't sustain
them. You can only spend what you can afford, that's the truth and we've
said that all along. My observation on this, which is very important, is
that the problem for the government is that they think money will solve
the problem with the public services. Let me give you an example which
really blows this out of the water. In Wales, a place close to your heart,
they spend as much money per capita of the population on health as they
do in France, yet in France you don't wait more than four weeks for an
operation. In Wales you wait months and the Health Service there is in
a worse state than it is in England. Now if money alone was the solution
Wales would have a first rate Health Service that was the match of France,
it's not. It's because they still run the service, as they do in England,
on the basis that the government owns it, the government runs it, it's
run by targets and diktats, everybody looks over their shoulder to the
minister and it's financed solely by general taxation. It's not going to
get any better by simply pouring money in, it's got to be reformed and
changed and we are coming forward with proposals. You show them at the
Bournemouth Conference, big proposals, the beginning of real reform and
change in the Health Service.
HUMPHRYS: So you would cut, let's
be quite clear about this. You would not spend that seventeen billion pounds
extra in three years or whenever it is from now, you would not spend all
that money, you would cut it, let's be quite clear about that because that's
irresponsible you're saying.
DUNCAN SMITH: What I've said is that we
are not going to match their spending. What we are not going to do is say...
HUMPHRYS: The other way of saying
that is that you would cut their spending isn't it.
DUNCAN SMITH: Well it depends how we'd
rearrange or maybe even change it...
HUMPHRYS: Hang on, we are not going
to match it means we are not going to spend that much doesn't it.
DUNCAN SMITH: I agree. What I am saying
to you there are other ways in which you can spend more but not spend directly
by government taxation, this is the point that we are making. For example,
in places like France, everywhere else that we visited, all the systems
I've visited, nobody does it our way, nobody runs their Health Service
so the private and the voluntary sector are excluded.
HUMPHRYS: Individuals in many cases
spend more themselves so that's what you would have...
DUNCAN SMITH: My answer is we must look
at other ways as well of financing the Health Service and we are looking
at that. We have ruled out charging, we've said that doesn't work.
HUMPHRYS: Ah, now you've...
DUNCAN SMITH: We did at the conference,
we ruled that out.
HUMPHRYS: You ruled it out completely?
Because what you've said to me on one occasion, on this programme, was
that you were prepared to consider charging for GP visits - absolutely
gone all of that?
DUNCAN SMITH: We looked at that and when
we went and talked to the French, for example, a lot of the French doctors
said to us "there's one bit about our system that you must not look at,
it's charging - it's a huge paperchase...
HUMPHRYS: So that's gone?
DUNCAN SMITH: ...it doesn't work, it's
inefficient. So we've said no. We said that at conference that we therefore
having looked at it, decided no. But what we are looking at is a whole
range of other ways of helping to finance the Health Service, public services
generally. For example, the way in which insurance is used in most other
countries.
HUMPHRYS: Private insurance?
DUNCAN SMITH: ...pay as you go as well,
ways of giving tax relief to people who have to buy their treatment out.
Let me give you a good example here which is very important. Last year,
in the Health Service, something like a quarter of a million people, most
of whom were pensioners on fixed incomes, not on insurance, had to go outside
the Health Service to buy their treatment: hip replacements, heart bypasses.
They did so because the waits were so long they were in great pain, most
of them either got their children to pay for it, or they sold something
to do it. What we were saying at conference was: Look, as a start, we
will help you get that treatment. We would assist you, in part, by providing
some of the finance, we will look at ways of giving tax relief on that,
but what we're saying is instead of saying to you if you go outside the
Health Service, you're wrong, we'll say no, we want to widen access to
healthcare and so we think that that's not a bad thing.
HUMPHRYS: Right. Well, the logic
of that then is that if I were to say "I don't actually like the NHS, I
want to do everything outside the NHS and it cost me a lot of money" -
BUPA or whatever it happens to be, whichever service I sign up to. You
would say "we will give you a tax incentive to enable you to do that" because
that would be the Conservative way, wouldn't it?
DUNCAN SMITH: We are looking at various
ways to do that and we haven't had the answer...
HUMPHRYS: You will do that. I mean
in one way or another you will do that?
DUNCAN SMITH: But I have given you an example
of that. One of the things I've said to you is that a quarter of a million
people last year left the Health Service and there was probably at a least
a million or more who simply couldn't quite make that final amount of money
but were sitting in pain on a waiting list...
HUMPHRYS: Right.
DUNCAN SMITH: ...our observation is that
in every other country, people get to choose where they go. In France,
they can choose to go to a private or a state provider and the state doesn't
say "oh, that's no good".
HUMPHRYS: No, it helps them, it
helps them.
DUNCAN SMITH: The states says...
HUMPHRYS: So you would do that?
Right, so that is...
DUNCAN SMITH: We're looking for ways to
do that, I haven't got exact specifics but I've given you an example of
the way of doing it...
HUMPHRYS: No, no, but you've not
abandoned that Conservative principle which is to say "if people want private
Health Service, we will help them to do it and if more people go private,
that's not only fine, that's actually good, we approve of that".
DUNCAN SMITH: Well, we approve of widening
access to healthcare and that's the only way to do it. You can't simply
say as...we're the only country in the western world that says "State good,
private and voluntary bad" and yet it doesn't make sense.
HUMPHRYS: So you would like to
see more people going private, let's be clear about this point.
DUNCAN SMITH: We think more involvement
of the private and voluntary sector with people themselves being able to
get that treatment. The key thing of the Health Service is they must be
able to get the treatment when they need it, regardless of their ability
to pay, now that's a critical component.
HUMPHRYS: Let's talk about...we're
clear enough there then, let's talk about education.
DUNCAN SMITH: Yes.
HUMPHRYS: What we tend to hear
from you is a lot of fairly woolly talk about decentralisation, parental
choice and all that, all sounds terribly good but it's mostly rhetoric.
You did...(laughter from Iain Duncan Smith)...well, that's how it comes
across...
DUNCAN SMITH: ...John, I'll take your word
for it. Okay.
HUMPHRYS: ...that's how it comes
across to an awful lot of people. Well, one of things you were very clear
about at one stage was vouchers. You thought it was a good idea, do you
still think it a good idea that people, that parents, should have vouchers
so they can decide what sort of school they want to send their children
to?
DUNCAN SMITH: I for example don't think
that anybody out there really understands what vouchers are. So when we
talk about vouchers what we ought to really do is explain what you are
meaning and what I mean and make sure we mean the same thing.
HUMPHRYS: Right, well what kind
of vouchers would you like to hand out to parents?
DUNCAN SMITH: Well, let's just put the
word "vouchers " on one side, because I don't think parents...
HUMPHRYS: Well, I'd rather not,
because it's a very clear specific thing.
DUNCAN SMITH: I'll come to exactly what
we are talking about in a minute, whether it's vouchers or not. For example,
in America, they have systems of choice which you may call vouchers, they
don't, so there are different ways of phrasing it. The real point to ask
is not vouchers or no vouchers, the question to ask is how much choice
do parents get with their children to get the school that will give them
a decent education and what we found when we did a study and again I'm
sure you have read this but we produced a pamphlet on this which showed
that tens of thousands of children each year are trapped in inner city
schools that fail, that failure rate is getting worse and in actual fact
the parents have no right to choose, in other words they can only go to
that school. We said that can't be right because those children themselves
will go on to fail because they don't have qualifications. So, again,
at Bournemouth, we put flesh on the bones on what we mean by this, approaching
this concept that you're referring to and we said, for example, two things:
one, we would have state scholarships for children particularly in this
moment in inner city schools. That if that school is a failing school,
then their parent will be able to take that child and send it to a school
- could be state, could be private - if that education's not good enough.
The second thing we have said is also - and this is what we learnt from
Holland and other countries. In Holland they have a statutory right - parents
- if a school they don't approve of - it's not working - they can go and
set up another school with a group of parents and achieve state funding
for that as well. So what we're saying is: we will offer the same facility.
HUMPHRYS: And one of the ways you
can do that is to offer every parent a voucher, that's one of the ways,
isn't it?
DUNCAN SMITH: Well, this is a way of doing
something similar, but not specifically quite that because...
HUMPHRYS: So you've backed off
vouchers then?
DUNCAN SMITH: No, it's not. What we're
saying is, this is giving them choice on the same basis but we're providing
it on a logical basis.
HUMPHRYS: But you are no longer
going to say parents "we'll be giving you..."
DUNCAN SMITH: But you're obsessed with
the word "voucher", John.
HUMPHRYS: Obsessed!
DUNCAN SMITH: I've just given you two examples
of how we are saying money will follow...
HUMPHRYS: ....I know and I've offered
you this third because you know...the reason you're - if I may suggest
this to you - the reason you're backing off really is because you know
it's a pretty emotive word. It means a lot to a lot of Conservatives though
and they would say if Iain Duncan Smith said this morning "yes, we liked
vouchers" that would tell us...deliver a very clear message. The Conservative....
DUNCAN SMITH: But John I've said, that
we are looking as we go to different countries to look at the systems that
they produce that are better than ours. We find variations of the concept
and all I've given you today is two commitments - very big policy commitments
that we have made already - which is children can go - take your child
to another school if that school is failing. In other words, the money
will follow the child. The second thing is that parents will be allowed
if that school is not good enough to be able to set up a new school now.
HUMPHRYS: I understand that.
DUNCAN SMITH: That is the principle of
money following that parent and child. And in inner city schools, where
the failure is so great, and that's where we want to focus at this stage.
HUMPHRYS: I take that point but
there was an internal document, one of your internal briefing documents
at the weekend, a Conservative Party briefing document, saying that you
were studying with interest voucher schemes.
DUNCAN SMITH: Of course we will. I've
left it open exactly how these things will work, but John, the principle
must remain behind all of this, which I'm determined is that we've got
to take central government out of the running of schools, get schools free
to run themselves. One of the things that I do find and that is very important,
I go round school after school and the one thing teachers and head teachers
say to me is that we don't feel that we have the power to discipline children,
to run the school, to do the things we know to be right here, and parents
feel they have no choice. So, ...
HUMPHRYS: Do teachers want to cane
children. Say yes?
DUNCAN SMITH: No, teachers don't want to
cane children, but what teachers want to do though John, is they want to
discipline children, and if necessary exclude children without being over-ruled
by Appeals panels.
HUMPHRYS: To a tough headmaster
who says, I want to cane children, would you say yes or no.?
DUNCAN SMITH: We've said the cane is out,
but what we are saying is that legitimate discipline cannot be employed
because the government sets targets, so give them the power, that's the
key. Power to the head teachers, choice to parents, that's exactly what
we mean.
HUMPHRYS: Different area. Huge
concern to you and your supporters and many other people, to asylum. I
remember you saying when they closed Sangatte, we are not going to take
- we should not take, we should not take a single one, a single one - you
said that to me.
DUNCAN SMITH: I remember that.
HUMPHRYS: A single one. Now, they're
taking twelve hundred maybe up to eighteen hundred. I haven't heard you
sounding off about that, and....
DUNCAN SMITH: No, John, I'm sorry. Oliver
Letwin was absolutely critical of the government's position. Look, what
do we discover.
HUMPHRYS: So we shouldn't take
a single one.
DUNCAN SMITH: I tell you now that the deal
that they have come up with over Sangatte is frankly a one over on the
British government. Look what the French were saying Paris the other
day. The French minister was praised to the skies....why.
HUMPHRYS: We're being conned, is
what you're saying.
DUNCAN SMITH: Absolutely, and I think one
of the biggest problems that we've got here, is we had David Blunkett going
over there talking tough, and what he's now done, is he's done a deal with
the French that gets them off the hook. It doesn't produce us any long-term
solution, there's no bi-lateral arrangement that allows us to return asylum
seekers direct to France for them to deal with them and for them if they
came in first to France to be dealt with and sent out from France. Our
problem is that actually it's going to make matters worse. Now people
who are not legitimate asylum seeks, and let's be clear about this, this
country has a proud history and I would be the first to praise it, as being
the country that has the best record in looking after those who suffer
political persecution. But economic migrants, we now have a worse position
as a result of that settlement.
HUMPHRYS: You mentioned Oliver
Letwin there, who is obviously the Shadow Home Secretary. I interviewed
him a couple of days ago about what people call....
DUNCAN SMITH: I listened.
HUMPHRYS: Good... gay marriages
as it's called, not gay marriage of course, but civic partnerships. He
thought it was a jolly good idea, civic partnerships. I thought that for
you.....
DUNCAN SMITH: I think it's fair for you
to say exactly what he said, and what he said quite positively and quite
legitimately....
HUMPHRYS: What the government was
doing
....
DUNCAN SMITH: What he was saying was, if
the government is proposing - we don't know the details of this yet - if
the government was proposing what we ourselves said nine months ago in
an article written by Oliver, approved by me and by many other members
of the Shadow Cabinet, if what the government is saying is that there are
legitimate grievances about people who live together, who cannot get rights
for example over hospital treatment, cannot approve treatment, have difficulties
in other areas too, because their relationship is such that they are excluded
from those decision making processes if somebody either dies or if they
are very ill....
HUMPHRYS: In other words, if they
have the same rights as married couples.
DUNCAN SMITH: No, it's not quite the same
thing.
HUMPHRYS: More or less, more or
less.
DUNCAN SMITH: What I'm saying is, this
goes wider by the way than gay couples. What Oliver was saying quite rightly
is, we believe that therefore those are legitimate grievances, we should
settle them and we should sort those out and help people who live together
but, do you know John, it's not just gay couples, this is one of my concerns.
HUMPHRYS: No, it's elderly sisters
who live together....
DUNCAN SMITH: Daughters who look after
mothers...
HUMPHRYS: I take that point, but...
DUNCAN SMITH: ...so it's very much wider.
So yes, where there are legitimate concerns about those relationships
and where they cannot be treated decently or properly, or have control
or power over the other person who is in that relationship, then I think
we need to settle those...
HUMPHRYS: Yeah, well, fine.
DUNCAN SMITH: ...but what we said at the
time is that we are not in favour of gay marriages because...
HUMPHRYS: No.
DUNCAN SMITH: ...we say that marriage is
a very special place in society and it's very important, but what we are
looking for - it's not a pale shadow of marriage, but to rectify those
things....
HUMPHRYS: This is where people
once again are confused by your agenda, because they say "here you are,
putting homosexual relationships on - in all the important respects - on
the same legal footing as a marriage". Now this isn't what we thought
Tories were about is what they say.
DUNCAN SMITH: No, I don't think so, John.
I think, let's be fair about this, I think that everybody out there, everybody
who is decent, who wants to see fairness will recognise that there are
legitimate reasons why certain people who are together will want to care
and look after the other person.
HUMPHRYS: All right, fine...so
DUNCAN SMITH: I am simply saying there
is a fairness to this and we're saying deal with it on a case by case basis,
do it fairly, don't try to create a pale shadow. What was interesting...when
we proposed this nine months ago, John. Torch, the Conservative Campaign
for Homosexual Reform, they said they backed us because they didn't want
a pale imitation of marriage, what they wanted was those issues, such as
we've talked about - hospital treatment - dealt with, so they could live
a decent life as well.
HUMPHRYS: Let me move on very rapidly
if I may to Iraq because we've had this great dossier. I am not going
to ask you for your comment on twelve thousand pages...
DUNCAN SMITH: I'm glad!
HUMPHRYS: ...so is the audience,
I imagine! But what I am interested in is this and it's a very simple
specific question, if I could press you to be as specific as possible on
this. It may take many, many, many months - six months, perhaps longer
- for them to sort out what's in that dossier for them for the inspectors
to do their job. If the United States decided in that time - without specific
UN approval - that they wanted to attack Iraq, would they have your support
to do so?
DUNCAN SMITH: Well, you want a specific
answer and I think it's very important to lay out the ground very briefly
before I answer it.
HUMPHRYS: I would be very glad
because we are short for time.
DUNCAN SMITH: I understand, I understand,
but I just want to say something important. What the resolution says right
now is that Iraq must comply with all the previous resolutions and both
declare what it has...
HUMPHRYS: Yes, and there must be
another resolution.
DUNCAN SMITH: ...no, it doesn't say that,
it says that they must go back to the United Nations, but there doesn't
have to be another resolution, it simply has to go back to the Security
Council. If Iraq in this ten thousand pages of document simply says ultimately
that it does not possess weapons and that these weapons were not being
developed and have not been developed beyond the stage they were at the
Iraqi war and they do not exist, and if there is evidence to quite the
contrary which I believe there is, that they do exist, and they have been
developing them, then I think it is legitimate for the powers to say then
you are breaching the terms of this resolution which empowers us, if necessary,
to take military action. I think that's critical and I would back it on
that basis, I think it would be right because it's the threat of military
action which has put the pressure on Iraq now...
HUMPHRYS: And if the UN inspectors
find no evidence, no proof?
DUNCAN SMITH: Well, there's a problem about
this, John, over the UN inspection, is that they can only find things if
ultimately Iraq is prepared to co-operate.
HUMPHRYS: So we back America whatever,
in effect, is what you're saying?
DUNCAN SMITH: No, it's not whatever, what
America would have to come up with, as the UK Government would have to
come up with is evidence, as they believe it, of the possession of those
weapons of mass destruction which Iraq is denying. If they can demonstrate
that, which I believe they would do if this turns out to be a full denial,
then I think it's quite right for us to say you've breached the resolution.
The resolution is clear, if you do not comply, then the outcome will be
military action.
HUMPHRYS: Let me change the subject
yet again now, covering a lot of bases this morning, but it's the last
time we'll have on this programme with you, there we are....
DUNCAN SMITH: Sad yes....I'm sorry to see
the end of this programme I must say.
HUMPHRYS: Cherie Blair, you've
been, your party has been noticeably reluctant to comment on the whole
affair, bearing in mind what has happened in the last few days, are you
now prepared to say something about the way Number Ten has behaved because,
as I say, you haven't been until now.
DUNCAN SMITH: Well I think it's fair to
say the reason why we haven't commented is because whilst we've seen this
to be a personal matter about the Prime Minister's wife, whatever her dealings
or judgement, it's not really something for politicians to get involved
in. I don't believe in slanging matches over people's families, I think
that's wrong. I think, however, we've kept this under review, I think
it's important because what...I think it is legitimate for us to comment
on is whether or not these arrangements then create a problem about the
integrity of Government. In other words, whether the British people have
real doubts about the integrity of both Downing Street and of Government.
We all suffer if that happens, without that, without integrity, without
the belief in integrity, then Government will not function and therefore,
I've watching very carefully to see whether or not there are any such suggestions,
whether things may have happened or may not have happened, with prior knowledge.
There seem to be in today's papers some indication, I must say I find
it bizarre at best, but we now seem to have the issue with the Prime Minister's
Chief Press Spokesman.....or communication....
HUMPHRYS: Alastair Campbell...
DUNCAN SMITH: Yes, Communications Advisor,
now it appears almost briefing against the Prime Minister's wife, which
is a matter of some quite genuine concern because what he is indicating
and I don't know all these details, I really don't, but what worries me
is he seems to be indicating that he knew all along about some major concerns
about these relationships and if so, it does bring into question elements
about how much knowledge was there before those denials were issued over
a week ago.
HUMPHRYS: Should he go - Alastair
Campbell?
DUNCAN SMITH: I'm not going to call for...(coughing)...Sorry,
I'm not going to call for anyone's...(coughing).....can I start again.
I'm not going to call for anyone's resignation. I think the issue here
is, how much knowledge was there before denials were made and were denials
made if there was prior knowledge. Now al I am saying is, as you've already
said to me, there are things in the paper today which do call into question
some of those early denials and that I think is critical for both Alastair
Campbell and if necessary the Prime Minister, to clear up.
HUMPHRYS: Final thought, do you
respect and trust Tony Blair as Prime Minister?
DUNCAN SMITH: I respect the Prime Minister,
I respect the Office of the Prime Minister.....
HUMPHRYS: I meant Tony Blair personally.
DUNCAN SMITH: Well I don't think I ought
to get into personal, what he does in his role as Prime Minister and who
he is as Prime Minister, not as an individual, as Prime Minister, yes I
believe it's important to respect the Prime Minister in what he does, I
disagree with much of what he does, I think the way they conduct business...
HUMPHRYS: Do you trust him?
DUNCAN SMITH: ...I've seen no reason yet
to doubt any reason to trust him in a personal capacity, but my concern
would always be that that is the view the public take, and to have the
public take that view, they must feel that at every turn, that office is
not demeaned by any briefings that take place which are themselves untrue.
HUMPHRYS: And is it being demeaned,
as we speak?
DUNCAN SMITH: I don't know the answer to
that question John, but I do think it's important for us to understand
now, if, as we hear today, there are..there are statements being made that
there was prior knowledge about these arrangements before those statements
were made, I think there are now legitimate and genuine concerns that these
issues are now straying back into the territory of what did everybody know
before those denials were made. I've stayed out of it up until now, and
I'm really staying out of it still in a sense of the Prime Minister's wife,
I have no...no issues there, my concern however is without integrity and
legitimacy and honesty, then Government cannot function and this now must
be settled otherwise it saps at the very heart of what is the highest office
and the highest office holder in the land.
HUMPHRYS: Iain Duncan Smith, thank
you very much.
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