................................................................................
 
                                 ON THE RECORD 
                             DAVID CURRY INTERVIEW       
 
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1                                 DATE:  2.11.97
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SHEENA MACDONALD:                      That report from David Grossman.  Well a 
short time ago I spoke to the Shadow Foreign Michael Howard and to his now 
former Shadow Cabinet colleague David Curry.  I asked Mr Curry first why he 
decided to quit now, ten days after the Party's policy was changed rather than 
staying in the Shadow Cabinet to fight his corner. 
                                                                                
DAVID CURRY:                           Because, well, first of all I tried to 
see whether I could come to terms with it.  I decided I couldn't.  I did some 
extensive party tours, and everywhere I went people asked me about the Single 
Currency.  I came home, there was a list of journalists wanting to talk to me: 
Are you content? Are you going to stay?  And I came to a conclusion that I 
really couldn't lead a life of political pretence, quite honestly; pretending I 
agreed with the policy, when everybody, and above all myself, knew that I 
didn't.  And I thought with a new Leader, it is fairer on William Hague, and it 
is more honest of myself to acknowledge that this is the case and to get out.  
And I decided that that was the sensible thing to do. 
 
MACDONALD:                             Now, you say in your resignation letter  
to Mr Hague that you fear the Cabinet's position will become more Euro-sceptic
over the coming period.  What do you mean? 
 
CURRY:                                Well, I fear that we will move towards 
fighting the Election campaign on a vote Labour and abolish the Pound - vote 
Conservative and save the Pound, campaign.  And, I think that would be very 
misguided.  I think we're moving towards opposition in principle, which I would 
object to.   And you see the truth of the matter is that as I understand our 
policy at the moment, a future Conservative Government could envisage 
abolishing the Pound, because William Hague has said, "never say never"; the 
Cabinet-the Shadow Cabinet has specifically ruled out an opposition in 
principle.  So if we campaign on the grounds of 'Vote Conservative and save the 
Pound', then that seems to me to be a false statement in the light of our own 
policy position, and I hope we don't drift in that position. 
 
MACDONALD:                             But you seem- 
 
CURRY:                                 I think that would be a terrible 
mistake. 
 
MACDONALD:                             You seem to offer two contradictory 
speculations there: one the Cabinet is going to be-oppose a Single Currency
in principle and one that it isn't.  Now, it can't do both.  Which do you fear? 
 
CURRY:                                 Well, I fear that we will move towards 
an increasingly Euro-sceptic position, in which the only practical implication 
people will draw is that we would never enter a Single Currency.  When Peter 
Lilley in his press statement after Gordon Brown's statement in the House, 
talked about the Labour Party going to abolish the Pound, the implication is 
that we never would.  When William Hague wrote his article in The Telegraph, he 
began I think with the word: The Labour Party is proposing to abolish the 
Pound".  Now the implication again there is that we wouldn't.  Now, I think 
it's important that we should spell out as a Party that we could envisage the 
circumstances in which we felt it was right to go into a Single Currency, 
because that after all is the line the Party's taken as far as I understand it, 
and my own position is not that we should get in today or yesterday, or that 
even I would always assume that we should enter.  It is that I think a calendar 
which is artificial, which is geared to political events, not economic 
circumstances might well leave us very badly marooned as far as events are 
concerned, would leave us very much marginal as far as the debate is concerned, 
and would alienate us from sections of the Electorate which we need if we're 
going to build out of that core Conservative support, in order to win a General 
Election in the future. 
 
MACDONALD:                             Now, I know commentators are very 
surprised by your decision to leave the Cabinet.  It's been whispered in the 
papers and, indeed, other names have been mentioned.  Are you expecting in the 
light of how you foresee things going within the Shadow Cabinet that other 
Tories are going to leave the Shadow Cabinet or the Shadow Government? 
 
CURRY:                                 Let us be clear about this.  My 
resignation is not part of a concerted campaign.  I did not discuss it with 
Michael Heseltine. I haven't seen Michael Heseltine since before the summer 
and I still haven't spoken to him.   
 
MACDONALD:                             But you plan to? 
 
CURRY:                                 I did not discuss this with Ken Clarke.  
I took the decision with my family in private and I'm inciting nobody else to 
follow me and I have not encouraged other people to do that and I'm aware of 
nobody else who proposes to follow me.  This is my action, it's an individual 
action, because I believe that it would be wrong to say one thing, believe 
another, when the whole world and myself knew that that was the case.
 
MACDONALD:                             This is an individual action, but you 
are not alone.  You've mentioned Michael Heseltine, Kenneth Clarke - two big 
guns in the former Government, now campaigning for the kind of instructive 
engagement with Europe that you were talking about. 
 
CURRY:                                 Yes.  
 
MACDONALD:                             So, what are you personally now going to 
do?   How do you propose to go about winnning the hearts and minds of the Tory 
Party to your brand of Euro-enthusiasm, which is the word you use? 
 
CURRY:                                 Right. Let's be clear about one thing.  
First of all I don't intend to spend the next X number of years, spending the 
whole of my life eating, living, sleeping, drinking European issues.  I want to 
maintain close contact with Agriculture and Fisheries; I want to get back and 
into the arguments about Local Government, Housing, Urban Regeneration; because 
don't forget the Elections coming up immediately are Local Government elections 
which we want to win; but I also intend to be able to talk around the country, 
sensibly and rationally about Europe.  But the other important thing is for the 
Labour Government has got to take the initiative.  It's no good Gordon Brown
going on fishing trips to try and get other people.  If a Labour Government has 
got a majority of a hundred-and-sixty-nine, it has got the responsiblility of 
Government; it has got to face up to its responsiblities and to make the 
recommendation as to what it thinks is in the British nation's interests. 
 
MACDONALD:                             David Curry- 
 
CURRY:                                 If it makes a recommendation I agree 
with I'll support it.  If it doesn't I won't. 
 
MACDONALD:                             Thank you very much indeed David Curry.  
 
CURRY:                                 Thank you. 
 
 
 
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