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ON THE RECORD
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 16.3.97
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good afternoon. Any day now Mr Major
will announce the date of the election. So as the real battle is about to be
joined, we shall be talking to the leading strategists for the Tory and Labour
Parties - Brian Mawhinney and Donald Dewar. Will Dr Mawhinney confirm that Mr
Major wants a televised debate? The most vicious electoral combat will be in
the marginal seats and we'll be reporting on how all the parties are preparing
their troops to go over the top. That's after the news read by Moira Stuart.
NEWS
HUMPHRYS: Well the phoney war is all but over -
and we are about to enter the final stages of this long campaign to decide who
will govern Britain for the next five years. We shall be reporting from the
front line today - from the marginal seats where the battle will be decided.
And I'll be talking to Donald Dewar - the man Labour is relying on to marshall
their forces and who will play a prominent role in a Labour Government.
But first the Conservative campaign. It
is not going well - yet another poll this morning suggests Labour's lead is
still increasing. So now, it's being reported the Party has decided to play
its trump card - John Major. He will do what no other Prime Minister in
Britain's history has done - and face his challenger on live television. A mark
of his courage - or his desperation? Earlier this morning I spoke to the
Chairman of the Tory Party - Brian Mawhinney and I began by asking him if Mr
Major does want that televised debate.
BRIAN MAWHINNEY MP: Yes, he's keen to do so and confident
about the possibilities. We think that it's right that there should be a
series of debates - at least two - we would want them to be prime ministerial
debates and thirdly, we would want them to include rigorous cross-examination,
including Mr Blair talking to Mr Major and Mr Blair talking to Mr Major.
HUMPHRYS: Alright, let's take one of those at a
time if I may. At least two, so you would be happy for there to be more than
that.
MAWHINNEY: At least two. One of the things that I
recognise, John, is that others will have views and the broadcasters will have
views, so I'm not trying to be too prescriptive, but I'm setting out the sort
of ideas that we have and that we would want to see put into play and then we
will discuss around those.
HUMPHRYS: You want take it, I think, as red, that
all the main broadcasters will want to have the debate, so might you give one
to each of the main broadcasters. Is that a possibility?
MAWHINNEY: Well, we've set out what we're looking
for. We're looking for debates because it fits into the overall campaign ideas.
You know that the Prime Minister has said he's going to be the man in the
middle of the crowd, so he will be taking the message directly to the people on
the streets. Secondly, he'll be in studios like this, being cross-examined
rigorously by people like you and others. And we see the debates as the third
part of that strategy so that people will be able to, not only hear rigorous
cross-examination of the prime ministerial candidates if you will but also hear
them relating to each other.
HUMPHRYS: When it's likely to begin? - When are
they likely to begin the series of debates?
MAWHINNEY: Clearly that's a matter again for
discussion with the broadcasters. We've, like the other parties, had
preliminary messages and letters from I think all of the main television
broadcasters and indeed some independents saying that they would be interested.
This week we will now start to have serious discussions with them about how we
may carry this forward. And I'm assuming, clearly, that we will carry it
forward because Mr Blair has been indicating through his aides that he's
interested in having a debate, certainly Mr Prescott and Mr Mandleson have been
going around saying let's have a debate, so let's get on with the planning.
HUMPHRYS: So when would he like them to begin, as
far as you're concerned?
MAWHINNEY: Clearly they will be as an integral part
of the campaign and during the course of it, I would imagine, somewhere in the
middle of it, but that's to be discussed with the broadcasters and they will
presumably have scheduling issues that they will want to bring to the attention
of the parties.
HUMPHRYS: Now you talk about them as being prime
ministerial debates. What does that mean?
MAWHINNEY: Well it means that, excuse me, it means
that the country faces a choice of two futures and there's a Conservative
future of: stability, sustainable development, economic progress. There is a
future under an alternative Labour Government, which we believe, would be a
leap into the unknown, a risk for people to take. So there's a clear choice
emerging. There are only two potential Prime Ministers, so it's right that the
people who have to make that choice should have the opportunity to look at and
listen to the two leaders of the parties, one of whom would be Prime Minister
after the election. Now, I recognise, not only the legal framework but that
there are others who will want to hear from Mr Ashdown, I accept that point and
we will have to find a way through but in terms of the debates, we're talking
about, in our view prime ministerial debates.
HUMPHRYS: You can be absolutely certain of course
that Mr Ashdown will say - is already saying apparently - I am not going to be
excluded from this process and you can understand why he says that. So, are
you, you have set your face entirely against, as it were a three-handed debate,
that's Mr Ashdown, Mr Blair and Mr Major - have you, you've set your face
against that entirely.
MAWHINNEY: We think that there are two potential
Prime Ministers and people should have the opportunity to hear and listen to
those two men being rigorously cross-examined and discussing the issues between
themselves because one or other of them will be Prime Minister at the end of
the General Election. Mr Ashdown won't and I'm not going to get into arguments
about whether he is now so close to Mr Blair that there's almost a coalition
and so on. I recognise that they have a view to express, that he has a
legitimate view to express, I'm not trying to downgrade that but the issue
here, seems to me, to be Prime Minister - choice of two futures. So I'm very
confident that within the legal restraints the broadcasters will be able to
cope.
HUMPHRYS: Right, so there will be no
three-hander. Might there, perhaps, be a separate debate between Mr Major and
Mr Ashdown, because we can see that Mr Ashdown may even to go to court on this
and say fairness requires this to happen.
MAWHINNEY: Well frankly I'm not going to be drawn
into legal speculation.
HUMPHRYS: I'm talking about fairness here?
MAWHINNEY: Well, the legal framework is for the
braodcasters to determine, because the law applies to them. I entirely take
the fairness point, indeed that's why I said that Mr Ashdown and the Liberal
Democrats have a view to put forward, and I'm sure that the broadcasters can
cope with that.
HUMPHRYS: Alright, let's assume that we.....
MAWHINNEY: Within the law, but we're talking about
prime-ministerial candidates on behalf of their parties.
HUMPHRYS: Alright, but what if we, the
broadcasters said to you: Look we're worried because the courts may well say
this can't be allowed to happen - you cannot exclude one of the three main
parties. The way around it, we say to you, is have separate debates including
Mr Ashdown. Would you then say, we will do that, or would you risk losing the
debates entirely rather than go down that road?
MAWHINNEY: I think the broadcasters will be able to
cope with the idea of Mr Major and Mr Blair debating on a number of occasions
with each other, and still find ways adequately to represent the legitimate
views of Mr Ashdown and the Liberal-Democrats.
HUMPHRYS: So there is no way that Mr Major is
going to debate Mr Ashdown on live television during this campaign?
MAWHINNEY: No, we're talking, as far as the British
people are concerned with a choice of two futures, not a choice of three
futures, and a choice of two possible prime ministers, not a choice of three
possible prime ministers. So that's the issue, which I think the people want
to hear, to see, to have the opporotunity themselves to judge from the mouths
of the two men, one of whom will be leader of this country after the General
Election. I do not denigrate Mr Ashdown, I'm not being rude or underhand when
I say that he doesn't believe he's going to be prime minister, and nobody else
believes he's going to be prime minister, so the broadcasters will have to find
a legitimate way to allow his views to be covered within the legal framework
which is a matter for the broadcasters not for us. But we see this very
clearly as Mr Major and Mr Blair being rigorously cross-examined, and each
other, and I think a lot of people will look forward to it, because they will
have noticed for example, that Mr Major makes himself available regularly for
rigorous examination in studios. You, yourself did and excellent interview
with him sometime ago. John Paxman
HUMPHRYS: Jeremy.
MAWHINNEY: Jeremy Paxman did an interview with him
not so long ago, he did a live telephone - phone in. We don't see as much of
Mr Blair opening himself up to this sort of rigorous examination, indeed what -
probably a couple of years since he was on this programme. So people will want
to know why there is this reluctance on Mr Blair's part to go through the
normal democratic processes that Mr Major has already undertaken, will do a lot
more of during the election, and I'm sure you and your colleagues will look
forward to the opportunity both in studios and in the debates, to have that
rigorous cross-examination.
HUMPHYRS: Indeed. I'll come back to that in just
a second, but just to clear up one small point, but they will not think it
small. The Nationalists - you've said there is no way you'll debate Mr Ashdown
- clearly that applies to the Nationalist leaders as well?
MAWHINNEY: Yes, we're talking about a prime
ministerial.
HUMPHRYS: Okay. Now, the debate itself. You want
there to be a dual as I understand it then, between Mr Blair and Mr Major. You
don't want one of these set-piece formulae things where a panel of the great
and the good, or whoever they happen to be - or indeed the studio audience asks
questions through the chairman, and it's all strictly controlled and all that.
You want them to have a go at each other?
MAWHINNEY: I think that there is a role for
commentators or interviewers to be part of the examination process - the
cross-examination process, but I think that there is a role also for Mr Major
saying to Mr Blair, "Can you explain this", or "What does that mean?" and Mr
Blair having a similar opportunity for the Prime Minister. So I look for
rigorous cross-examination..
HUMPHRYS: Of each other by each other.
MAWHINNEY: .. but part of it would be of each other
by each other.
HUMPHRYS: So it could be quite a punch up couldn't
it?
MAWHINNEY: Well, I don't believe so, and I don't
think most people out there believe so. The truth is that both of them are
respected senior politicians, and I'm sure they will behave themselves
accordingly.
HUMPHRYS: Studio audience? Do you like the idea
of having a live audience?
MAWHINNEY: Those are the sort of things, frankly
that broadcasters will have...
HUMPHRYS: But you'll have a view on that as well
won't you?
MAWHINNEY: Yes, depending on how the programme was
to be structured there is the possibility of an audience, but I think that what
we're talking about is rigorous cross-examination and so that suggests to me
interviewers and the backward and forwards between the two politicians.
HUMPHRYS: Why has the Prime Minister, you
together, made this decision now?
MAWHINNEY: He has been keen for a very long time,
as you know, to take the message to the people directly. We did some of that
at the Party Conference. We have been doing it ever since. He has been making
himself available regularly to do interviews.
HUMPHRYS: No, but this has never been done before.
Never in our history has a Prime Minister said I am prepared to face the Leader
of the Opposition in this way. Isn't it because you are now at the stage where
you're desperate, putting it bluntly?
MAWHINNEY: No, I'm not. No, we're not. And, no,
that's not the reason. The strategy has been I think, fairly clear for some
time. There's a lot of evidence that we have a view, that we're going to take
the message directly to the people. The Prime Minister is very good at it,
people like it. They like to meet him, they like to hear him directly. I
was hugely impressed by the warm response that he got walking around the
streets of Bath yesterday. So, what he's going to do, he's going to say: yes,
I'll be in your neighbourhood, talking to you directly. Yes, I'll be in the
studios saying to the very professional interviewers on the broadcasting
stations, saying: okay, let's have a discussion and the third pillar of that is
to say: alright, there is a choice of two futures.
We have said that this is a hugely
significant Election. So, let's carry forward that thought and allow the
public to see the two potential Prime Ministers talking to each other and being
cross-examined.
HUMPHRYS: But, Mr Major himself has said in the
past that he didn't want to create - and, I quote - a Presidential atmosphere.
That is precisely what he is now going to be doing, isn't it?
MAWHINNEY: No, I don't think so because-
HUMPHRYS: What two leaders. You said a Prime
Ministerial confrontation. I mean, that's precisely what's going to happen.
MAWHINNEY: Not confrontational. Prime Ministerial
debates.
HUMPHRYS: Fine.
MAWHINNEY: But what they will be talking about are
the policies that will inform the choice between two futures.
HUMPHRYS: Indeed, but a forum we've never had
before.
MAWHINNEY: Everything is a first, John. We've
managed to get inflation down for soo low for so long that you could say it's
a John Major first. We've now got so much investment coming into this country
from around the world that you could say that's a first. Things have to have a
first and it feels right in terms of the strategy that we're adopting and
decided quite some time ago to adopt that Mr Major and Mr Blair should talk to
each other.
And, I think, it's worth also pointing
out that we're not interested in sound bites. You've heard him say that
repeatedly. I'm not interested in a debate that's about sound bites. And
I've made clear to you again today we're not interested in that sort of debate.
HUMPHRYS: Is it going to be a long debate - fifty
minutes, an hour and hour and a half?
MAWHINNEY: Well, all of those have got to be
discussed with the broadcasters. You wouldn't expect me to try to make a
pre-emptive bid.
HUMPHRYS: Right.
MAWHINNEY: But, I do expect them to take place. I
do expect Mr Blair to be there and I expect that there will be a huge viewing
and listening audience.
HUMPHRYS I think, that's entirely possible. What
about the date of the Election because, presumably, it's coming very close now
or, at least, the announcement is coming very close since you've announced
this?
MAWHINNEY: Well, I think, the announcement - I
expect the annoucement to be made soon but you know there's a way, an
appropriate and proper way for these things to be done and the Prime Minister
will handle that and make the announcement in due course.
HUMPHRYS: In the coming week, perhaps?
MAWHINNEY: Well, as I said, I expect that it will
be announced soon. But, there is a proper way for doing it. It's down to the
Prime Minister. He'll decide and he'll announce.
HUMPHRYS: If I were to assume in the coming week I
may not be a million miles wrong?
MAWHINNEY: The Prime Minister will let us know,
John.
HUMPHRYS: You say that you're not - you're
not desperate but you are in difficulty. You conceded as much in your speech
in Bath. It was a very - it was very candid, it was a very realistic speech.
How far behind do you think you are, at this stage?
MAWHINNEY: Oh, I'm not in the business of
speculating. I'm in the business of affirming. First of all that I think we
are behind at the moment. Conventional wisdom has us behind and I believe very
strongly, without hesitation, that on Election Day we'll be ahead.
HUMPHRYS: Can I suggest to you a couple of reasons
why that may not the outcome and one of them is that you're having enormous
difficulty getting your message across and there are a number of reasons for
that. One of which is that in spite of all the pleas from the Prime Minister
down, the party is still snapping at each others' heels, at its throats indeed,
squabbling and your main pitch to the voters is a confused one partly because
of that. You cannot sort it out.
MAWHINNEY: I think that the message is quite clear.
I think the message is that here is a Government who took tough decisions
coming out of the recession. They were the right decisions, though they were
politically damaging at the time. The people now see them to be right, the
economy is in better shape than anybody can remember, jobs being created,
unemployment falling. We're talking about investment, we're talking about a
better quality of life, a better standard of living. And people believe that
they've worked hard to achieve that, they deserve credit for it and they can
see that being sustained. What I do accept is that after eighteen years, if
you stop people on the street and say is it time for a change, there's a sort
of reaction: yes time for a change. But if you then get them to focus on the
issues: what is it you would want to change? and do you think what's on offer
from Labour would be a change for the better, you find them moving very quickly
and that's the challenge we've got.
HUMPHRYS: Yes, but the problem is that when you
then tell them what's on offer, they end up being confused. Let's look at your
new slogan: "You can only be sure with the Conservatives". The word is sure.
Now, that's a daft slogan in a sense isn't it because on the one hand you're
saying: we can..you can rest assured that everything is going to be fine with
us because there's this stability and we build on the kinds of successes we've
had. And yet at the same time you're delivering a whole raft of new policies
over the last few weeks, we've seen them coming out one week after another on
all sorts of things which all seem very radical, and which are capable...they
may be sound policies, I'm not disputing the policies for the moment at all.
But, they are capable of being interpreted in all sorts of different ways and
they leave people very unsure, very unsure indeed because it sounds terribly
radical, confusion there you see.
MAWHINNEY: I don't accept that for a moment and if
you would permit me, had we not demonstrated that there was a continuing stream
of new ideas to deal with a changing world, then your question would have been:
you're run out of ideas why on earth should the people vote for you.
HUMPHRYS: Depends what the ideas are of course,
doesn't it. It depends when they're produced but to produce something a few
weeks before the election as radical as you've been doing, allowing people to
think, for instance, and this may well be entirely wrong, but allowing them to
go: Lord, the pension's going to go, my council..my OAP council home's going to
be sold off to somebody privately, I'm going to have to take out an insurance
if I need residential care. Allowing people to think that..all of which may be
cleared up eventually certainly, possibly, but, in the meantime as you come up
to this Election, they're thinking: what on earth is going on here, it's all a
bit worrying, a bit puzzling. Not the assurance that they want from you.
MAWHINNEY: But you even posing that question cause
at least some people out there to say, that's not what I thought the Tories
were about, is that what they are about?
HUMPHRYS: I'm merely posing what other people have
posed.
MAWHINNEY: But it's not of course. What we're
recognising is that for young people entering the world of work there are
opportunities to build a pension for them which will be far better and far
bigger than they would get otherwise and with a state guarantee. You talk
about old peoples homes, the truth is that an increasing number of elderly
people in this country live in privately run homes. There is a view, which we
have, that on the whole, the local authorities ought to be making sure that
facilities are available but not necessarily providing them. That happens from
one end of the country to the other, at the moment. So what we are saying is
that this is a Government, even after eighteen years, that still has ideas
based in Conservative philosophy, not in centralised state control, but in
Conservative philosophy that can address the developing issues right through
into the next century. But building on the success, the achievement in terms of
the economy and you heard the Prime Minister yesterday saying, having now got
the economy in sustainable form, in a way that is benefitting everybody, we now
need to ensure that the have-nots become the haves in a much broader sense than
has been possible over the last few years.
HUMPHRYS: And it may well be, as I say, that you
will get all of those messages across eventually. But you have a very few
weeks to go before the Election and you do see the contradiction here don't
you. The problem that you are offering reassurance - you can only be sure with
the Conservatives - but at the same time offering things that cause people to
think, by their very nature, these are radical policies and cause people to
think I'm not quite sure what that's about. It takes a while, even with the
most well-informed people for them to understand quite how a policy is going to
work. And these are complicated issues that we're discussing.
MAWHINNEY: That's a very fair point and yes we will
keep on explaining and promoting those new ideas built on the success and
achievement. You've said you can only be sure and that's right.
HUMPHRYS: You said that.
MAWHINNEY: Yes. But you can only be sure so there
are two words that need to be brought to people's attention. Not only that
they can have the sense of sureness, stability, sustainably building on what we
have achieved. But the contrast between that and the leap into the unknown, the
huge risk in voting for a party which has been consistently wrong right through
the seventies and the eighties and the nineties and is now turning to the
British people and saying: having been wrong all of those years we now want you
to know we recognise we've been wrong.
HUMPHRYS: But you see I was offering that as an
example of a confused message. On the one hand you can be sure, on the other
hand, we're very radical. And when it comes to the Labour Party there seems to
be some confusion as well because you say they're copying all of our ideas but
New Labour, New Danger. Well if they've copied...as you've just said, they
used to have different policies they now have policies that in many respects,
are very similar to yours. So it can't be both can it? It can't be both
grandmother's footsteps as I think Mr Major put it and New Labour, New Danger.
There's another contradiction here.
MAWHINNEY: On the contrary, John. Let's be quite
clear. Our tax and spending plans are published for the next three years.
They're all there, they're all set out.
HUMPHRYS: The Labour Party's bought them.
MAWHINNEY: If Mr Brown hadn't been chicken and had
turned up here today so that you could interview him, after you'd interviewed
me, as was the plan, you could have asked him how he was going to find the
twelve thousand million pounds in the first two years of our spending plans
that he can't cover or the thirty thousand million pounds through the lifetime
of a five-year Parliament. So, don't let's have a conversation that there's no
difference between the two Parties on spending. Everybody out there knows that
the Labour instinct is to spend money and if they're in doubt, they look at
Labour-controlled Local Authorities up and down the country and they see that
instinct put into play by new Labour, day in and day out. And out there,
people know that a Labour Government means more spending, which means more
taxes, which means higher interest rates, which means higher mortgages and
incidentally, if Mr Brown had had the guts to come, you could have asked him
what was going to be in his new Budget that he promises as an emergency should
he win - God Forbid. That's not the Budget, John, that's going to pull taxes
down. That's a Budget that's going to put taxes up.
HUMPHRYS: We're going to be talking to Donald
Dewar immediately after this interview. So, perhaps, some of those questions
will be dealt with then. But the point I'm putting to you is that your message
is a very confused one. There has to be something that explains the massive
gap in the opinion polls, the fact that you lost Wirral South and so on and
on. The fact that you, by your own omission, are behind in this race.
MAWHINNEY: And I addressed it, as I said, head on
on Friday in Bath and let me repeat again. I think, that if you go out onto
the street and say to people after eighteen years is it time for a change they
say: yes. If you then get them to focus on the issues they are very quickly
saying: well, what is it we do want to change? And would a change be for the
better. That's the challenge. I accept it. That's the challenge, that's the
fight over the next weeks.
HUMPHRYS: You describe it as a challenge. Isn't
the reality that many, if not most, in your Party have actually given up and
conceded the race is lost and they're looking forward to the future in another
direction now?
MAWHINNEY: Absolutely not. You should have been at
Bath on Friday and Saturday. That would have given you the answer to the
question.
HUMPHRYS: I've talked to some who were and they
say it was a bit of a wake.
MAWHINNEY: On the contrary, it was a very
enthusiastic, very positive affirmation by the core of the voluntary party who
were saying whenever you announce the date, John, our sleeves are already
rolled up - we're ready to go.
HUMPHRYS: How many seats are you going to win by?
MAWHINNEY: We will win.
HUMPHRYS: The Deputy Prime Minister says sixty
rising.
MAWHINNEY: We will win. When I took this job I
said I would only make one prediction in all of the time I had it, that was
that we would win the General Election. I am in no doubt about that at all.
HUMPHRYS: Brian Mawhinney, thank you very much,
indeed.
MAWHINNEY: Thank you.
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