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ON THE RECORD
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC-1 DATE: 10.10.93
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good afternoon and Welcome to On The
Record. We know what the Conservative Party thought of Michael Heseltine this
week; they cheered him to the echo when he strode on to the platform at
Blackpool. But what does Michael Heseltine think of the party and of the
direction it has now taken. In today's programme he gives us an exclusive
interview - the first since his heart attack four months ago.
NEWS
But first, Michael Heseltine. He has
been a force in British politics for a third of a century - but for how much
longer? We've heard nothing from him for the past four months, since that heart
attack in Italy... though the rumours have told us a great deal. He's still far
from well... he might need a heart by-pass ... he's going to have to retire
from politics. At the very least his influence over the party and British
politics is at an end.
Well, it didn't sound at all like any of
that when I spoke to Mr. Heseltine near his home a couple of hours ago. I asked
him first: How are you?
MICHAEL HESELTINE MP: I'm well. Medically, as best as I
understand what the doctors tell me, I'm fine to carry the responsibilities and
strain of the Cabinet job that I had. But you've to do it slowly, take it a
step at a time. It would be crazy to do a sort of dive in from the sort of
recuperative process but one of the doctors had looked inside my heart. They
put a local injection, a telescope upside. He said I'd got the arteries of a
man of thirty or forty.
Don't quarrel with him, don't quarrel
with him.
HUMPHRYS: So, what does that mean? No need for a
by-pass? Because there was some sort of-
HESELTINE: Oh, no, no. I just lost the tip of an
artery - close down, finish. So, it wasn't close to the heart and, so, the
arteries themselves are very good. But this tip, for reasons beyond my
knowledge, has gone, so, there's nothing to be done about it and the last test
I had the guy who conducted it said: You've already got the heart of an average
sixty year old who hasn't had a heart attack - and, that, was very encouraging.
HUMPHRYS: So, you're completely fit?
HESELTINE: Medically, yes. But it takes time to
recover from the shock and the experience and the unnerving. But, I've come a
long way and, so, I'll go back next Wednesday to the Department and if people
will bear with me and put up with it, I'll take it fairly slowly to start with.
But, I daresay, there will come a time when he won't notice much difference.
HUMPHRYS: What you say, the shock of it.
What-what was it like? All of those of us who haven't had a heart attack live
in fear of it, obviously, and think: God, what's it?
HESELTINE: Yeah, well, I mean, we all. My father
died of a heart attack and that was a long time ago. I think, it's very
possible that he wouldn't have died under today's conditions. I had wonderful
treatment in Italy. I was very close to a hospital with a wonderful cardiac
unit where they had a professor who was one of the leading Italians in the
subject. I was there within an hour so I couldn't be more grateful and
appreciative. They're wonderful people, the Italians. Anyway, but the actual
experience - one knew something was wrong. I was not frightened. I didn't
think it was that wrong but I said to Ann: Look, I think, you'd better get a
doctor.'
HUMPHRYS: This was before it happened or when it
happened? You didn't have sort of intimations that something was going wrong.
HESELTINE: Well, you see, it's all hindsight. I
think, in truth, we'd taken a weekend off, to go to Venice. There was a big
art exhibition on and Ann wanted to see that and I wasn't feeling on top form.
And, looking back, I, perhaps, should have gone to a doctor then but you don't
- you know. But, anyway, there it was and I had this pain - not acute, that's
why I wasn't that worried. It didn't last that long and, from that moment, I
got into hospital and I had no more trouble. But I mean, of course, they'd
plugged me up with all sorts of things, with, of course, one disastrous
consequence which - I mean: damn the British media, like all politicians do -
one of the things they have to do is to get your uric acid - I think, it's
called - content correct. And, so, they give you some medicine for that. A
side effect of which can be that you can develop gout. And, so, the-
HUMPHRYS: Ah, that explains it.
HESELTINE: So, what everybody saw was not the fit,
strapping Heseltine, which I wished to portray but this sort of tottering
wreck. You know, hobbling to the ..copter. It was my foot which had been- had
gout induced, nothing to do with the heart, at all. Anyway, sod's law, you
know. That's politics.
HUMPHRYS: But you did look truly awful in that
picture that appeared in the newspapers.
HESELTINE: Well, my real, real girlfriends wrote
and said: Michael, you've got lovely legs!
HUMPHRYS: (Laughter) But did you think you were
going to die? I mean was it-?
HESELTINE: No. No I didn't. I mean, I must be
honest. I did not feel that frightened. It wasn't an acute pain that, I mean-
I mean one of the things that one has to realise is that you can become a heart
attack bore very easily. Everybody who has had any sort of tremor or
experience, or much worse, they're all individual and it's no use me talking to
you about my heart condition because you haven't got my heart. They're all
individual and mine, I think, looking back, was a light experience and I mean,
as I've said, this telescope they shove up you - I mean, Chris Patten had the
same thing - is local anaesthetic in the groin. Up goes the telescope, you're
lying there, you know, and the doctor turned to me and said: 'Do you want to
watch?' Do you want to watch! And, I said: 'Aargh!' you know.
HUMPHRYS: Anything but.
HESELTINE: Absolutely. But anyway, that's it.
It's all now a few months ago.
HUMPHRYS: Did it change your perspective on
anything? On life, on politics, on what you're doing in the job?
HESELTINE: I suppose. Well, if I tell you. I
mean, I remember - ludicrous really - sort of thinking of what I would say at
the Tory Party Conference while I was lying in that hospital in Venice and I
actually made some notes, then. So, I mean, you know, I am a politician.
And, you know, it's in the blood. I've been in the House of Commons now for
about a quarter of a century - over a quarter of a century - most of it on the
front bench and I like it. But the fact is that you know you do ask these
questions, your family make you ask these questions, quite understandably.
There are other things I could do. I am a manic gardener and that's what I've
been doing. I could go back to commerce, although that side of my life is some
way behind and it's always been very successfully done by my colleagues in the
company that I started. So, you know, I've never had a sort of one way track
about politics. Although I adore it and I've enjoyed it hugely - am enjoying
it.
HUMPHRYS: Ah, I was going to pick you up on that.
You said: 'I have enjoyed it hugely'.
HESELTINE: Hear, hear. No, no, no, no, no.
HUMPHRYS: And, I was about to leap in and say:
Ah, that means-
HESELTINE: How kind. Well that's the value of a
programme like this, you can correct. Otherwise, that'd be over the headlines:
'Heseltine says future is in the past'
HUMPHRYS: Quite. Exactly, exactly.
HESELTINE: -which is not exactly what I am saying.
No, the fact is that I love politics. It's- and I've always wanted to be
President of the Board of Trade.
HUMPHRYS: But what about more ambition - further
ambition now?
HESELTINE: Well, that's a sort of wary question but
all politicians-
HUMPHRYS: But you'd expect me to ask it.
HESELTINE: I know you're bound to ask it and you-
I'm not going to give you any different answer I've ever given. My belief is
that John Major will win the next Election. I helped to win the last one and I
shall help to win the next one and, I think, that all this sort of chat about
leadership challenges and all that, I think that's for the birds and I don't
think we shall see it. Especially, I don't think so, after the very impressive
speech he made on Friday.
HUMPHRYS: But there is - we'll come to that in a
moment, if we may - but there is something about you that is a bit different to
other politicians.
HESELTINE: Trouble, trouble (laughter).
HUMPHRYS: Apart from that. Well, though, that's
true - that's true - and you've had plenty of that.
HESELTINE: Plenty of trouble.
HUMPHRYS: And, yet you keep bouncing back or
swinging back. I mean-
HESELTINE: Yes. I wrote a book called "Where
There's a Will".
HUMPHRYS: Precisely. You resigned over-over
Westland, you were defeated for the leadership, you've had your heart attack,
you've been out of action for three months and, yet, when you talk to people,
when the pollsters go out with their clip boards they say: who do you think is
most likely - apart from the Prime Minister - to lead the Tory Party? And,
they say you - still. So, what is it about you?
HESELTINE: Trouble.
HUMPHRYS: It's got to be a bit more than that.
Ambition?
HESELTINE: Long hair, long hair. Tall, you know.
Been around a long time. I've yet to answer what is it. Who knows? Who
cares? You know, if I'm President of the Board of Trade, I'm a loyal member of
John Major's Cabinet, I intend to go on doing that as long as he wants me.
HUMPHRYS: And, the inevitable - come on, you'd
expect me to ask this, too - if John Major fell under a privatised train, would
your hat still be in the ring? Or, would you say: I've had it all now, I
don't-?
HESELTINE: Well, I mean-No, you never make these-
you can give every sort of evasive answer to these questions and they're all
lies, you know. They may sound nice and they may deceive people but the truth
is any politician that I know and respect, when it comes to the crunch, if they
think they have a chance of preferment and, obviously, ultimate preferment,
take it. Some of them do it sheepishly and with reluctance and say: It's never
what I ever had in mind but they always do it. Others are honest about it -
Ken Clarke - I like him, I trust him, I admire him. What does he say? He
answers the question straight - just the way I've always answered it.
HUMPHRYS: Which is to say: Yes, given another
chance, I'd have a go for it.
HESELTINE: No and I don't say that because what I
always said is you cannot do what your friends will never let you do. That's
the real test, you cannot - if you're in the House of Commons and a vacancy or
something for this sort for a job, I mean you don't need to invent a
hypothetical situation. Your friends are the ones who said "you're the guy who
could do this" and if they don't say that, or if they positively say "you're
not the guy" you're wasting your time.
The only reason that you can make
progress in that sort of situation is if there's a body of opinion that says
that you should.
HUMPHRYS: But somebody like you could always find
friends to say "yes you ought to do......"
HESELTINE: No, I don't agree with that. I do not
agree with that at all. I mean there could..I think the House of Commons is
now someway past in my life in the sense that I haven't been there since June.
I have no idea about the mood. I have no idea what people will think. There may
be large numbers....one journalist said to me in Blackpool and perhaps this
says it all. He said "Michael, you're the only really popular person here this
week". You see they've nothing to be frightened of anymore.
HUMPHRYS: But they're wrong aren't they because
you're saying I'm still around and...
HESELTINE: I'm around, it doesn't mean to say I'm
frightening.
HUMPHRYS: And I haven't changed.
HESELTINE: I've never been frightening, but people
have misjudged me.
HUMPHRYS: So you're not going to write your
memoirs?
HESELTINE: You know I'm unhappy about this memoir
business. I mean they're self-serving aren't they and they're all to put the
person's point of view and I find it, I mean I'm not going to be holier than
thou about it all, I mean perhaps I myself might be tempted one day. But, the
idea that someone is putting it all down, all those private conversations, all
those tensions and it's all being recorded, not to present the historic truth
but to present the truth as the person wants history to read it. That's what
always happens, they're self-serving, self-pleading, self-justifying. Perhaps
they're helpful to the historians because they can then put them all in a room,
although I must say I...I mean one of the most fascinating pieces of politics I
was ever involved in was when I had to defend Mrs Thatcher over the Belgrano
incident and people were very kind about the quality of speech that I made that
did it. I believed she was one hundred per cent right, I believed then and I
believe now, I must make that absolutely clear. But, I had to get together in
one room the admirals, the intelligence people, the civil servants, all the
people who'd played a critical role in advising her, it was only six months
before. They couldn't agree, I wonder what each of their memoirs would look
like.
HUMPHRYS: So what about Mrs Thatcher's memoirs?
HESELTINE: Look, I did a deal with Mrs Thatcher in
1986 that I wouldn't open up many of these issues and if she sticks to the
deal, I'll stick to the deal.
HUMPHRYS: But, she hasn't.
HESELTINE: As far as I'm concerned, personally, so
far, she has.
HUMPHRYS: What was the deal, then?
HESELTINE: That I wouldn't pursue the issues of
1986 and I haven't. I've stood with the.. It's very simple. I left it to the
Select Committees of the House of Commons.
HUMPHRYS: But, we're talking about now, we're
talking about Mrs Thatcher having written....a set of memoirs - critical of the
Prime Minister while he's still in office.
HESELTINE: Ah, she hasn't been critical of me.
HUMPHRYS: No, but she's been critical of lots of
other people. Well, we don't know for sure yet about what she said about you.
HESELTINE: That's what I said. If she sticks to
the deal, I'll stick to the deal.
HUMPHRYS: But, what you're saying is: that if -
Have you seen the book, by the way? Have you read the book?
HESELTINE: No, no.
HUMPHRYS: So, if somewhere, later on in the book,
she says Michael Heseltine is a rotten old so and so.
HESELTINE: I'm sure we know that she thinks that so
that won't actually sort of provoke great reaction in me.
HUMPHRYS: What would it need to provoke you, then?
HESELTINE: We'll just see.
HUMPHRYS: What about what she has had to say about
John Major?
HESELTINE: Well, look. Let's stand back. My
interest is in the unity and the success of the Conservative Party. I don't
want to see, I deeply deplore the divisions between Left and Right and the
accentuation of often very phony distinctions, the mislabelling that goes on.
It's a development that has grown in my political lifetime over, I suppose,
twenty years now and I don't like that aspect of politics, the divisiveness of
it all, the personal sort of tensions of it all. I know it's there but I
thought that John struck with me a very powerful note when he said in his
Conference speech I should hear these things first in private. And, I don't
think it would do any good for me, on this programme, or any of my colleagues -
and, of course, the media will be now all over the place, trying to achieve
this - to get instant reactions, instant comments which will blow the thing up.
HUMPHRYS: But, you're clearly unhappy about it?
You've made that point clear.
HESELTINE: I cannot - I cannot believe that it is
within the standards of the Conservative Party that I joined that this sort of
diary writing, gossipy pseudo history is part of the convention. I think - one
of the papers made this - I think, Alec Douglas Hume has set a sort of standard
which I would admire. There were always memoirs but, I think, that the nature
of them has changed and I'm not sure - well, I am sure - that it is for the
worse.
HUMPHRYS: It's causing damage?
HESELTINE: I don't think the people come out of it
well.
HUMPHRYS: Any of them - including the authors?
HESELTINE: I think, particularly the authors.
HUMPHRYS: Should there be a change in the rules?
HESELTINE: What rules?
HUMPHRYS: There aren't any rules, at the
moment, obviously. But should there..there are rules for Civil Servants.
Should there be rules for politicians?
HESELTINE: Well, there are rules..
HUMPHRYS: ..that say..
HESELTINE: Curiously enough, they seem to
have..I have..
HUMPHRYS: Yeah, but they have only to do with
things like national security and..
HESELTINE: Yes, but I think that, little by little,
the conventions have been stretched. And, of course..
HUMPHRYS: Do you think they should be tightened up
again?
HESELTINE: It's huge money. Dramatic money, you
know. And, and have no illusions, the money and the contents are very linked.
That it's no use going round saying: well, here's my view of history, as I
wrote it and it's factual, it's analytical, it's devoid of the sort of
bitchiness of politics because you won't get enough money.
HUMPHRYS: You mean people spice them up..?
HESELTINE: Oh, yeah, sure, sure.
HUMPHRYS: Do you think Mrs Thatcher's done that?
HESELTINE: I have no idea. I wouldn't dream of
making such an observation.
HUMPHRYS: But sounds as though you suspect that?
HESELTINE: I'm not even going to be drawn even by
your deft questioning in this direction.
HUMPHRYS: All right but the rules ought to be
changed. The rules ought to be hardened up to stop this kind of thing going
on.
HESELTINE: I doubt if you could have rules. I
doubt any more whether we live in the sort of society where you could have such
rules.
HUMPHRYS: Since we're talking about rules, what
about Mrs Thatcher - Lady Thatcher - wanting to change the rules so that a
sitting Prime Minister can't be challenged?
HESELTINE: Oh, no, certainly not. Certainly not.
Certainly not. I, personally, made it clear, at the time, when they changed
the rules fairly recently that I didn't think they should. I think that
politicians understand full well the nature of the profession in which they're
involved and the Parliamentary Party is more than able to exercise a proper
judgment. I don't think there's any case, at all, for changing. I don't think
there was a case for changing the rules and I don't think there's a case for
changing the rules today.
HUMPHRYS: So, you're out of step with people like
Douglas Hurd and Norman Fowler?
HESELTINE: Well, you know, let's have a discussion.
It's not.....You can't get a headline "Tories Divided Over Rule Change"
HUMPHRYS: No but it's an interesting..
HESELTINE: No, no. I don't believe that. I think,
it's perfectly reasonable that the Parliamentary Party should have those sort
of powers and I'll tell you why I think it's reasonable because they would only
use them seriously in extreme circumstances. It doesn't matter. I'm not going
to name any names but, I mean, I've seen some people who it's been suggested
might stand, it wouldn't matter two hoots of a flick of a finger whether
someone of the sort that I've seen mentioned stood or not.
HUMPHRYS: You're thinking of Mrs Teresa Gorman,
perhaps?
HESELTINE: I'm not going to be drawn into
discussing names of any particular person, I'm merely saying it would be of no
consequence. It would be a joke. Anyway, I don't think it's going to happen
and I don't think it should happen. Let me make that absolutely clear. But
nor do I think that you should somehow try to cosset the position of the leader
of the Party in the extreme circumstances because, otherwise I can tell you
what the alternative is: the alternative is the men in grey suits which is an
equally arbitrary process and it can actually concentrate power in the hands of
a very small number of people. Some, perhaps, unrepresentative of the
Parliamentary Party.
HUMPHRYS: Is John Major unassailable now?
HESELTINE: Yes, I think. My own view is that he
will lead the Party to the next Election and he'll win it. But, I think,
there's a desperately boring feature about the present political circumstances
- from the media's point of view - and the more you stand back and look at it
the clearer it is. Every political leader of an advanced democracy is in deep
trouble whether it's in America, Japan, France, Germany or Britain. They're in
deep political trouble because the electorate is simply distanced from the
messages they have to put over, for very obvious reasons. The Electorate is
going through a very difficult period. The economy has got huge problems
associated with it. People's lives are profoundly effected. So, when a
politician comes and says: well, it's going to get better, we've got to try
harder, this is the policy we're going to pursue. They also think: that's
- it's not doing me any good. And, it's not until that economic climate
changes that people are able to relate to what the politicians say.
There's nothing new in any of this. I
remember 1981 but the media can't say that. They can't interpret that because
what they've got to do is sell to their readers a story which the readers want
to hear and so the media are constantly giving the impression that there's
something that the British government should be doing, whilst there's a world
economic malaise.
HUMPHRYS: I'm not sure you can blame the media
altogether. I notice you said there in almost these words: John Major will
lead the Conservative Party into the next Election and the Conservatives will
win. You said exactly that - I quote - word for word in November 1990 and a
week later what happened, you challenged Mrs Thatcher and brought her down.
HESELTINE: Well, it's interesting that- I mean-
these quotations get- very clever research-
HUMPHRYS: Well you offered it! (Laughs)
HESELTINE: Yeah, well - OK. Well, I haven't- I mean
I did, I did, actually think that Mrs Thatcher would lead us into the Election.
I thought it was wrong that she should, as everybody knows. And, I think -
frankly - we won the Election because she was not leader of the Party. That
was my view and it still is my view and, I think, John Major fought a very
distinguished campaign against the pundits, it has to be said. I hope I did
everything that I could to help, as I did Mrs Thatcher. Nobody worked harder
at the 1987 General Election than I did.
HUMPHRYS: Yeah but the point I'm making is that
you thought that would happen then. You say it may happen. It is going to
happen now. Why should we believe it now anymore than we believed it then?
HESELTINE: Well, thinking back, I didn't think, at
that stage - I hope I'm right about this - that I had any idea that Geoffrey
Howe was going to resign. I had never the slightest intention of challenging
Mrs Thatcher. There was never-My view - and one day, if I ever get round to it
I might set this all up-
HUMPHRYS: Write your memoirs?
HESELTINE: Yeah. In 1986, my view was a very, very
clear one: to survive. And, nobody thought I could do that. I mean, not many
people who'd clashed with Mrs Thatcher did survive but I did. That was my
determination.
HUMPHRYS: John Major is beset with problems. You
wouldn't argue that. In fact, you said - again, if I may offer you one of your
quotes - if you have backbenchers who won't support you that limits
government's abilities to take decisions. You said that a few months ago.
Since than, he's lost - you've lost - another seat - so his majority is even
smaller - it's down from nineteen to seventeen. So, his abilities to take
decisions are even more limited now than they were then, aren't they? He's in
greater trouble now than he was then - for all sorts of reasons.
HESELTINE: Well, that doesn't follow - no, no.
What I said then was true. But, it doesn't follow that he's in greater trouble
now because-
HUMPHRYS: Smaller majority.
HESELTINE: No. It isn't a small majority, in any
serious-
HUMPHRYS: Smaller.
HESELTINE: It's only small because a very limited
number of Conservatives on the backbenches are not totally reliable on too many
occasions and it tends to be - I'm sad to have to say it - it tends to be a
limited number of colleagues who are totally - I think - removed from the
mainstream of what the majority of us want to see, who are prepared to withhold
their votes in the House of Commons. And, I think, that there is going to come
a point. Indeed, I think, John put this question fairly to Conference: if the
Tories want to behave like the Labour Party did, then, we'll pay an Electoral
price for it. I'm not against - I can't be against - the right of a Member of
Parliament to withhold their vote from their government. I have done it on
about three occasions in a third of a century and I wouldn't change that vote
and I respect people who are prepared to do it. It requires guts and
integrity - I'm not against that.
But, for the sort of College Green
psychology and the..
HUMPHRYS: For people who don't understand.
College Green is the bit of greenery outside Westminster where people rush out
to be interviewed on camera.
HESELTINE: The sort of headline dash out of the
House of Commons the moment the news breaks to get on television with some
quick quote and, then, to withhold one's vote has an enormous amount of
habit and routine that cannot be in the best interests of the Conservative
Party. And, you have to realise, none of us are there because we've got happy,
smiling faces. We're there because the Conservative Party chose us and put us
there and so we have obligations to them.
HUMPHRYS: But you're not there- you're not in
Parliament to represent the Conservative Party, you're in Parliament to
represent your Constituency.
HESELTINE: I-I think, you've got to just look at
that Constitutional concept. The Constituency that chose you was the
Conservative Party - that chose you.
HUMPHRYS: But you represent every individual in
that Constituency?
HESELTINE: Yes, but-no, no, no. You were chosen by
the Conservative Party. You then stand for Election. The reason why you're
elected is because a sufficient number of people wanted a Conservative
government. Now, it's perfectly true they understand - I hope, rightly -
within the framework and philosophy of the Conservative Party - that you have
to respect the integrity of the individual but it doesn't mean to say that you
are sending somebody who says he's a Conservative, going to support a
Conservative government, the moment he gets there is to be found all over the
place.
HUMPHRYS: Yup, but if you feel strongly about a
particular issue. Elizabeth Peacock during the coal pits dispute - when she
was very, very upset at what you were planning to do, closing down all those
coalmines. And, she went public about it.
HESELTINE: Sure.
HUMPHRYS: It was for her a matter of conscience
and she was representing the interests of her Constituency. You're not saying:
she shouldn't have been allowed to do that, she should have gone to John Major-
HESELTINE: No, I-
HUMPHRYS: -quietly - or to you quietly in some
back room - and said: I'm a bit bothered about this.
HESELTINE: No. I've made it clear. I, personally,
like virtually all colleagues at some stage, voted against my Party, and that
will always be a right and proper thing for a Member of Parliament to do, but
it has to be done with great care, infrequently. It is, if you like, a nuclear
deterrent in that sense and I don't quarrel with Elizabeth Peacock, who I like
and admire and get on well with and actually have been to support on many
occasions in her constituency. But I'm not thinking of Elizabeth as a matter
of fact and there are some colleagues who are today much more lax with their
loyalties.
HUMPHRYS: And I mean you yourself, you know during
the Westland you left a Cabinet meeting apparently Mrs. Thatcher thought you
were going to the loo and you went on television to say I am resigning because
I think she has got it wrong over Westland.
HESELTINE: She didn't think I was going to the loo.
HUMPHRYS: Or so we were told.
HESELTINE: I dare say that's what you were told,
it's not what she thought.
HUMPHRYS: Did you say to her I'm going out and I
may be gone for a long time.
HESELTINE: If I remeber correctly those words that
led to the death of a very distinguished explorer, I had no intention of dying
the political death. The fact of the matter was that as has been recorded by
those less emotionally charged at that moment, I didn't flounce out of the
Cabinet, I had made it quite clear.
HUMPHRYS: But you went on telly minutes later.
HESELTINE: There was a television camera as you
left Downing Street....
HUMPHRYS: You went to a press conference.
HESELTINE: That was four o'clock in the afternoon.
No no I mean when I've been drawn down a road I don't intend to go...
HUMPHRYS: No, because the point I'm trying to make
is that it is unrealistic surely for the leader of a party to say to his MPs
who aren't delegates after all but who represent the interests of their
constituencies, shut up, come to me privately if you have any concerns, that's
not realistic is it.
HESELTINE: I think he said first to me privately,
in other words you talk it through, you try to resolve it, not dash for the
television cameras, that was the point that I heard him make...and there will
come a time after the private dialogues where people have the right. Let me
give you an example, I've always respected Teddy Taylor and John Biffen, who
have taken an extreme view on Europe. I think they genuinely believe their
case, it's not a case that I believe, but I've always genuinely respected them
for the case they take, so I don't find it in myself to condemn people who as
Conservatives take a different view to myself, but there has to be a degree of
discretion, a degree of responsibility and you cannot have a situation where
the, the sort of almost the norm is any difficult decision the government is
going to have to take, there'll be a dozen colleagues who say not for us. I
mean, I just do not really understand whether people fully realise the gravity
of the economic situation that we face, we are going to have a very difficult
set of decisions to take, they are going to be tough, there is no other
government that would take these decisions.
HUMPHRYS: And there is a division within the
Party, isn't there, a real ideological divide within the party over how to deal
with that, whether to raise taxes, whether to cut spending further.
HESELTINE: Well this is what I keep reading about
the right-left divide.
HUMPHRYS: I didn't use that phrase.
HESELTINE: No you didn't, there is no reason why we
shouldn't. Every party is a coalition, it consists of a whole range of
interest groups, a whole range of people with great integrity but approaching
politics from a different point of view and the only basis upon which you can
lead a party of that sort is to find a pivot where you..around which you can
coalesce. If ever you get to the stage where the left of the party or the
right of the party, either extreme wing feel that they have got such power that
they can pull the whole thing their way, the danger is that the bits at the
other end will snap and that of course is the disunity, danger which has
absolutely devastated the Labour Party where the left did exactly that and the
moderate centre, if you can call it that, snapped off. For the Conservative
Party, which is in essence a party of power, huge historic prospective, huge
experience of power, ever to get itself in a position where it's perceived to
be struggling to the point of self destruction, would have its political
consequences and they would be dire.
HUMPHRYS: Let's look not so much at the left-right
divide but the tone of the Party. Some people say that since you've been away
and the conference illustrated this quite dramatically, particularly the fringe
meetings, the tone of the party has changed. On Europe for instance, we've had
Mr. Major telling the Europeans to get up..your tractors off our lawns. David
Hunt calling Delors a jumped up socialist bureaucrat, that's...the language,
the tone seems to have changed, to have got harder. On Europe first.
HESELTINE: I hear what you say, I..my views on
Europe are very simple. It's impossibe to overstate the economic relationship
we now have with Europe. Nearly two thirds of our trade goes with Europe. I
don't mind the sort of .. the use of language that gives this or that
impression if that's what contemporary politics demands. I am as guilty of
that as the next man, but if we create a psychology in this country where to
the men and women who earn the crust upon which we depend, our business
community, are switched off to the significance of Europe, there's only one
people who will suffer and it is us.
HUMPHRYS: And when Peter Lilley says for
instance...(both talking together)..well all right, but Peter Lilley is saying,
is suggesting in a speech at a party conference that half the population of
continental Europe are scroungers, I mean one wonders how that helps this kind
of partnership that you obviously think is so important.
HESELTINE: Well I'm not prepared to become involved
in discussing speeches which I didn't hear or which may well be out of context,
anything of that sort.
HUMPHRYS: Oh come on you hear that, you know that
wasn't out of context.
HESELTINE: It simply doesn't serve a purpose for me
to allow that division to open up, I will only use my words to describe my
circumstance and I know that whatever the rhetoric, Mrs. Thatcher used all the
rhetoric, nobody took us further into Europe than Mrs. Thatcher. All these
regulations that we're now having to..I'm having to with expert help from my
colleague Neil Hamilton, having to look at and re-do, do you know where they
all came from..most of them came from the single European Act from the
Cofield (phon) agenda....which Mrs. Thatcher rightly committed us to and
rightly whipped us through the House of Commons.
HUMPHRYS: All right, so we're to ignore all these
things we hear at the conference.
HESELTINE: There is no difference between the
endless bad mouthing between local and central government as one tries to blame
the other and central government trying to blame the Europeans. The fact of
the matter is every directive that comes out of Europe comes with the agreement
of the British government, that's where it comes from. It comes to us, we have
to put it throught the House of Commons and often we are the people who
embroider it and overbear it with all the complications that are part of it and
do you know where a lot of the directives from Brussels comes from? They come
from British pressure groups, who go to Brussels, with their particular case
and argue in Brussels to start the process of creating these regulations.
HUMPHRYS: Alright, let's look at something else
where people will say, are saying the Party has shifted, clearly shifted
towards the right and that's social policy and I know you are..I'm not
expecting you to comment on your colleagues but let me quote something else
that Peter Lilley said, the massive expansion of the Welfare State since the
war has not been accompanied by any diminution of social problems, any
diminution of social problems, that's sending quite a signal isn't it.
HESELTINE: Well I'd go further, they're worse.
HUMPHRYS: So poverty is worse?
HESELTINE: Not relative, not relative poverty
because obviously the tide of prosperity has brought up the living standards of
the western world.
HUMPHRYS: It's better to have pensions than not to
have pensions surely.
HESELTINE: No no that is not what I was talking
about, it was the social values, not the existence of the Welfare State, that
is.. most of that Welfare State has been either created or extended by
Conservative governments.
HUMPHRYS: But Beveridge achieved nothing.
HESELTINE: No Beveridge did, but he never intended
to achieve what we've got. I mean you will know that I wrote a book called
"No Time For Ostriches" when I was on the backbenches in favour of workfair. I
think that with three million people out of work we have an unemployment
problem which creates a disadvantaged group, particularly in some of the stress
urban areas where we have to look at more radical solutions to what is
basically the payment of cash for nothing in return. Now I've said that, it's
not government policy, perhaps I'm stretching over the bounds of saying it, but
these ideas are around.
HUMPHRYS: But clearly what you have said in the
past has led us to believe that you think self help does not solve all the
problems. The government now seems to be telling us ...
HESELTINE: How can you talk about self help solving
all the problems when you've got an ageing population who'll never work again,
I am talking about people who have already retired, there is absolutely no
point in saying to some sixty five year old or seventy year old who is living
on a State pension in a council house what you've got to do is help yourself.
What does it mean.
HUMPHRYS: So the government must help, the State
must help.
HESELTINE: What does the language of self help
mean, to a seventy year old living on a State pension in a council house? What
does it mean and unless you answer that question, you're just pandering to
people's emotions. Now if you say to me this is, I'll go back to my workfair,
if you are talking about the young kids of sixteen or who have left school
haven't got a job, and they say well I want my welfare benefit, you are
entitled to say well okay, we understand you've got a problem, we know that
there is an economic difficulty across the world, what are you going to give us
in exchange? And Beveridge would have been perfectly happy with that question.
HUMPHRYS: Peter Lilley wouldn't.
Well, all right I won't use the name
Peter Lilley if you prefer I didn't. Others in the Cabinet would not.
HESELTINE: Why should we be worried about the
existence of a debate in the Cabinet, I mean, I remember I used to NATO
discussions of defence ministers and people would sort of say, there is a
division in NATO as though it was a crime, what was it, it was an alliance of
democratic nations, if you can't have a debate there where can you, if you
can't have a debate in Cabinet what's the point of Cabinet?
HUMPHRYS: Yes debates in Cabinet perhaps, but we
are not talking about debates in Cabinet, we are talking about speeches made at
Blackpool or at fringe meetings at Blackpool, which lead people to believe that
the government is moving substantially towards the right. Now that's
significant, that isn't just a, this isn't just a debate about some vague
ideological nicety, how many angels on the head of a pin, it's fundamental to
the way British politics is going.
HESELTINE: I..these labels are so difficult to fit
because if you say moving to the right you then have to show me what policies
the government is pursuing you will probably find that I have either played a
part in the thinking of them or arguing for them some years before some of my
colleagues.
HUMPHRYS: Well we're talking about policies that
haven't yet been instituted, I mean we've got Michael Howard now talking about
maybe it's better if the illegitimate children of single mums are adopted
rather than stay with their mothers.
HESELTINE: Well that is something to the best of my
knowledge the government has not announced or taken any sort of decision on.
HUMPHRYS: But the Home Secretary is saying ...
(talking together)
HESELTINE: .....I'm not trying to cop out but a
disadvantage of not having been.....I haven't seen that quotation from....
HUMPHRYS: All right but you would not approve of
that kind of language, of that kind of expression of government intent if
that's what it was.
HESELTINE: I think that would be something that
would be controversial. I would like to know more about what Michael is saying
before I got involved in any discussion of that.
HUMPHRYS: And when Mrs. Thatcher, when Lady
Thatcher talks about the Thatcher inheritance, that much more secure... being
that much more secure...
HESELTINE: I have always been worried about the
personalisation of what I believe is the great traditions of the Tory Party. I
know, I have worked for Churchill, Eden, MacMillan, Hume, Heath, Thatcher, we
never had this personalisation of the great traditions until very recently and
frankly, I think it and I hope to God that John, I know he doesn't want to see
it happen to him, I hope to God it doesn't, because it's a...I mean frankly it
gives the impression that this remarkable political force which has governed a
democracy longer than any other political party in history has somehow or other
created a new philosophy in the last ten years, what have we been dong all this
time?
HUMPHRYS: Michael Heseltine I'll have to stop you
there thank you very much indeed.
HESELTINE: Thank you.
HUMPHRYS: Michael Heseltine talking to me a little
earlier today.
...oooOOOooo...
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