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ON THE RECORD
JOHN GUMMER INTERVIEW
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 24.4.94
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: The political horses are cantering down
the home straight towards the local government elections here. But for the
Conservatives those elections represent not so much a finishing line perhaps
as just another hurdle. The one after that is the European elections - and if
the Tory nag comes a cropper at either the Party - and John Major in particular
may be - is in big trouble.
You might think they'd be feeling pretty
confident at this stage - after all, the economy is sending out most of the
right signals - but the going seems never to be smooth for long. Since MPs
came back from the Easter break the government has managed to fall foul of the
blessed Dame Vera Lynn and her old soldiers and Michael Portillo has been
hitting the front pages with the wrong sort of headlines. His bid for the
leadership of the Party, or so it is seen.
The officer in charge of the local
election campaign is the Environment Secretary, John Gummer - he joins us now.
Mr. Gummer, all the evidence suggests
doesn't it that you are going to come a cropper on May the fifth and, if so,
that is going to be because of your national standing?
JOHN GUMMER: Well, I don't agree with any of that. I
think the fact of the matter is that there's no doubt that we've had a
difficult time through the recession and that things are now going extremely
well on the economic front because of the Government's actions, but of course
much of that has not yet been felt in people's pockets and they haven't either
seen in their own lives the improvements which are happening in Britain but not
in the rest of Europe, so it is a very good future for us - this is a very
difficult time, that's all.
HUMPHRYS: But hard not to accept that you're going
to become a bit of a cropper when you look at the evidence that confronts you,
isn't it?
GUMMER: Oh, well, I've been in this business for
a long time and I've been Local Government Minister and Chairman of the Party.
I have to say to you I never forecast and I've often found that the received
wisdom of the press and television turns out to be wrong.
HUMPHRYS: Well, I'm not offering you my wisdom,
I'm offering you the evidence of what's been happening in local elections in
this last month in particular.
GUMMER; Well, I think I prefer to wait and see
the evidence of the poll on the day, don't you.
HUMPHRYS: And what I'm suggesting to you is that
if things don't go the way they ought to go for you, the way you want them to
go for you, it will be not because of local issues but because of your national
standing and the diversions that that's creating.
GUMMER: Well, first of all these are local
government elections and if it were on local government basis there can be no
question that the Conservative Party ought to do well because, after all,
there's no doubt about it that Conservative councils both provide better
services and specifically costs the council taxpayer less and that's absolutely
clear. They provide a great deal less debt and they spend the money much more
effectively, that is now accepted by all commentators so, in terms of local
government, there is no doubt that the Conservatives have a real claim to serve
the people in local government.
Nationally speaking, of course, there
have been some things which have been not very helpful for the government, but
the major background matter - getting inflation down to levels which were
unheard of, getting interest rates down to make us particularly competitive,
and having falling unemployment in a Europe where rising unemployment is the
norm, is a major achievement for the Prime Minister and his government.
HUMPHRYS: But it's these things that, as you say
perhaps with some element of understatement of not being very helpful, that are
causing you the problems, are creating the diversions.
GUMMER: Well, I always think that there is a
tendency to create diversions at a mid-term, that's one of the facts, and as I
suggested the important bright news on the economy, which is so much part of
the policy and programme of the government, that bright news, including the
fact that our borrowing requirement has been significantly less than was
forecast, that good news takes some time to be lived out in people's lives, and
I understand that and you understand it, and that's why I don't think that the
kind of scenarios for post-elections are the scenarios which will really occur.
HUMPHRYS: But the odd thing is it's not other
people creating these diversions really, is it, it's yourselves, it's your own
Party that's sort of shooting yourselves in the foot all the time. D-Day is a
classic example - the D-Day celebrations, commemorations whatever, a classic
example of that.
GUMMER: Well, I wonder whether that's so. It
does seem to me that an awful lot of people desire to make out of stories
things which don't have much to do with them. I mean, you mention the
headlines about Mr. Portillo - he made a perfectly reasonable speech about some
matters which really concern him and concern us. I don't think there was
anything in it that any of us would disagree with - indeed, very pleased that
he should have said. But he can't say anything without you suggesting it's a
bid for the leadership. I think that's very odd.
HUMPHRYS: Can I come to Mr. Portillo, since you
raised it, in just a moment. But let's just deal, if I may, let's just deal
with D-Day first. I mean that was a pretty monumental cock-up wasn't it?
GUMMER: Well, I wonder whether that's so. First
of all, I think that a great deal of it was pushed into that position by people
seeking a story, but let's just face the issue. I must say I am very keen to
commemmorate D-Day. It's one of my earliest memories. I think commemmoration
in a solemn and sensible way is the central part of it. But I have to say I am
also going to find myself wanting to celebrate the fact that we are free
because of what those men and women did.
I think a great deal too much has been
said about this so I'm only going to say to you that I hope very much that we
shall have both aspects in what we do - solemn commemmoration of people who
gave their lives and celebration to the fact that there were people who were
prepared so to do and that you and I can have this conversation now, however
argumentative it may be, when we wouldn't have had it had it not been for
D-Day. I think both those aspects are very necessary. But to blame the
government for the fact that somebody down in one County decides to have a spam
fritter campaign, when it's got nothing to do with the government at all, did
seem to be to be carrying it a bit far, frankly.
HUMPHRYS: Well, if indeed that is what had
happened, but that's not quite what has happened, was it? What happened was
that the government simply wasn't in touch with the mood of the nation and
that's a problem, isn't it? That is seen to be a problem.
GUMMER: Well, I disagree with your assessment of
what happened. I think that some part of the media thought that they would try
to create such a situation. The fact is that the mood of the nation is various
and there are all sorts of things and sorts of ways in which we should be
commemmorating this occasion. I must say as I go around the countryside I find
the government is particularly in touch with the mood of the nation. What the
nation is concerned about first of all is economic matters, and we are putting
that right, and we're doing it in this country in a way which no other country
in Europe is managing it and they're looking to us and saying: we only wish
that our nations could do it with the forthrightness and strength of John
Major.
The second area they're concerned about
is - as I find very much in my own conssituency and elsewhere - is the problems
of the.. what appear to be the rising tide of crime and the policy of the Home
Secretary and the whole anti-crime programme of this government is beginning to
strike some very important chords. I don't think that the recent fall in crime
is anything like enough, but the fact that in London and throughout the country
we are beginning to see what I hope will be a continuing trend is because this
government is in touch with the people. No other Party's prepared either to
take the economic steps which we took, which have resulted in such a great
achievement, nor would any other Party be prepared to fight crime in the way
which we are, so we are much closer to the people's mood than you might
suggest.
HUMPHRYS: Now, you mentioned yourself Mr. Portillo
a little earlier and what was interpreted, of gaining a great diversion
interpreted as a bid for his leadership of the Party ultimately. Wasn't it
entirely inevitable that it would be seen as such? Wasn't it quite clearly
trailed as such?
GUMMER: No, not at all. The fact is that there
are three or four people in the Party who cannot say anything without the
press doing that. I read a very good speech by Michael Heseltine, an excellent
speech of the sort that he necessarily needed to make. It was immediately
hailed by some parts of the press - almost universally - as if it was a claim
for the leadership. He was actually supporting the government and specifically
promoting the policies of John Major.
HUMPHRYS: Yes.
GUMMER: I found that Ken Clarke has had the
same. You're determined to suggest that these arguments go forth and either
Mr. Portillo is not able to make a speech at all or if he makes a speech he
must make such a bad one that you don't notice it. If he makes a good speech
then you're determined to make it a claim for the leadership. I don't think it
is and he doesn't think it is either.
HUMPHRYS: Well, he didn't deny that he wasn't
looking to the long-term. I interviewed him yesterday. He made it perfectly
clear that he was, but the point is - if I may make this...
GUMMER: I would like to answer if I may to that
point. Here is a young and very successful politician, a member of the
Cabinet. If you asked him "Do you at any time in the next thirty years (for he
has thirty years), do you at any time in the next thirty years want to be Prime
Minister?" Is he likely to say "No, of course I don't". What a ridiculous
question about a ridiculous answer.
HUMPHRYS: Well, it depends on the context of these
things, doesn't it? It does depend on the context and there is Mr. Portillo,
who's meant to be running the London bit of the local election campaign, he's
up in the North of Scotland, he's making a speech that has nothing to do with
local elections in London whatsoever, and it's the context, the impression that
that creates.
GUMMER: There are two things. First of all,
apart from running the London campaign he is the Chief Secretary, and his job
is to do that job as well as the other - indeed, that is his major job. I
don't find anything wrong in his making a speech at a very long pre-ordained
occasion which he had agreed to do, and which properly he had kept that
commitment, and then making a speech which did the sort of broad view of
politics which all of us do.
But the fact is you are determined that
whatever speech he makes, or any of those others whom you have decided are
contenders, whatever speech they make you are determined to suggest that it's a
bid for the leadership. Mr. Portillo did no such thing in his speech. In any
answer that he had all that he did say was that at some time in the future he
wouldn't mind being in the position of being Leader - what on earth is wrong
with saying that. The whole idea that it's a bid for the leadership in twenty
years' time I think is a real nonsense.
HUMPHRYS: Yes, but you know how these things -
cos you're a pro yourself - you know how these things are going to be
interpreted and .... it is manifestly obvious. You've been in it for a long
time. You know how these things are going to be interpreted, don't you? You
can anticipate things and surely it's not beyond the wit to say now look just
ease off a bit now Michael, because we've got the elections... we don't want
any distractions and that's the point isn't it - we don't want to be
distracted. This was manifestly a distraction - when he should have been
having headlines about the sorts of things you want to talk about, you're
having headlines about Portillo making a grab for the leadership and so o n?
GUMMER: No, but, but if I could just face that.
We've had a number of local government press conferences in which we have
pointed out that the Labour Party runs a system which, on average, costs the
taxpayer, the local taxpayer, a hundred and thirty-one pounds more than
Conservatives do. We've run similar places when we've been talking about these
huge debts of Labour Councils and the relatively small debts of Conservative
Councils, about how Conservative Councils provide better services than Labour.
We've done all those. The fact is that you have found it impossible to find
time to run a programme like this on that subject. That is the subject..
(BOTH TALKING AT THE SAME TIME)
Well, with great respect that was a
subject I was asked to spend fifteen minutes on. We've now almost completed
that period without talking about that subject in its reality at all.
HUMPHRYS: We've talked about the election
campaign.
GUMMER: Well, with great respect the reason is
that it is you who are determined to make two quite contrary arguments. On the
one hand you say it is a grey government of a lot of lack people lacking
individuality, and yet every time any of us - and I've found exactly the same
- show the degree of individuality, the particular points, the way in which we
can contribute as individuals to politics in this country, then immediately you
suggest that this is a diversion.
You then are determined to have some
kind of leadership campaign and, therefore, if Mr. Portillo makes a perfectly
unexceptional (although rather good speech) trying to show the context and the
future in which Conservative policy should work, after all you have been saying
on television regularly, week in, week out, right up to the present, that we
must show more clearly not only our policies but how those policies fit in to
our philosophy. The moment he does it you don't say that's part of his backing
of the local election campaigns which are, you say, fought on a national
level. No, you don't say that at all. You say that that is his fighting for
the leadership. It is nonsense. It isn't that. He knows it isn't that, you
know it isn't it. But it's a better story, so you're deteremined to run it.
And I think it's a pity because I think it's a bad thing for the people of
Britain that we can't remind them and talk about those very serious issues,
which is that it's better to have a Tory Wandsworth or Westminster than a
Labour one, that's all.
HUMPHRYS: I think you've been making that point
very clear. John Gummer, thank you very much indeed.
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