t
................................................................................
ON THE RECORD
IAN LANG INTERVIEW
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 2.7.95
................................................................................
JOHN HUMPHRYS: Emma Udwin. Well, earlier this
morning, I spoke to one of the men running Mr Major's campaign, the Scottish
Secretary Ian Lang. I asked him first if he thought all this COULD clear the
air.
IAN LANG MP: I believe he can. I sense in the Party,
and in the country, a mood that this Leadership contest should be brought to an
end decisively on Tuesday. I think, our supporters in the constituencies
around the country have been given a great lift by this determined act of
leadership by John Major. They're rallying to him. We've seen ourselves rise
in the opinion polls.
I think, suddenly, the Party is willing
to look beyond next Tuesday and that we can capitalise on this. We can get
underway again, coming together with a renewed authority of our leader and
Prime Minister, to tackle the real enemy which is the Labour Party.
HUMPHRYS: This is quite a job, isn't it - soothing
(phon) dissent in the Party? It's quite an ambitious aim.
LANG: Well, there's been speculation and
rumour about the degree of the dissent within the Party for a long time. And,
I think, the Prime Minister was absolutely right to say: let's end this now. I
will lay my job on the line. Let's see what the position really is. He
invited anyone who wanted in the Party to put up or shut up. He has now a real
contest with a former Cabinet Minister and I sense that this has brought the
Party to focus on the reality of this issue - to take a decision - and that
will help clear the air afterwards.
HUMPHRYS: Well, it might. But, a mere technical
victory wouldn't would it - couldn't.
LANG: We're not in the territory of technical
victories. I sense that the mood is shifting firmly and decisively towards a
very substantial victory. And, I think, people are recognising now is the time
to put this behind us so that we can maintain the momentum as a party that
we've got with a renewed internal mandate for government and get on with
governing the country - explaining our policies in a united and uniform way to
the electorate and challenging the Labour Party - challenging them on why they
want to dismantle the Health Service again; why they want to disrupt our
Education policies; why they want to surrender our veto in Europe and so on.
HUMPHRYS: So, you'd accept - you have accepted
that a mere technical victory wouldn't achieve that ambitious aim that you've
set for yourselves?
LANG: Well, we're not talking about
technicalities and mathematics. We're simply not getting drawn into that.
HUMPHRYS: No, no. I understand that. And, I'm
not-because I don't how the thing is going to come out, any more than you,
obviously.
LANG: Quite, I mean the rules are there, you
can speculate endlessly but what we want is an impressive endorsement of the
Prime Minister.
HUMPHRYS: Right, that's the point, isn't it? It
has to be an impressive endorsement, if it is going to do what you want it to
do - and, that is distil the dissent within the Party - to clear the air.
LANG: We want to distil the dissent and clear
the air but we also want to maintain our momentum, to look to the next
Election, to getting our associations and our Members of Parliament working
together, singing the same song from the same hymn sheet, in a way that carries
conviction with the electorate and gets a greater comprehension and support for
the policies and what they're achieving.
HUMPHRYS: So, if it's not what you describe - an
impressive endorsement, a very substantial victory for the Prime Minister -
then, it will not have achieved what it was meant to achieve.
LANG: Well, in deciding to have this contest,
the Prime Minister was opening up the opportunity for the Party to take a
decision. I sense, as we move towards the close of the contest, that the Party
is taking a decision. And, I sense, that the coming together of the Party is
to recognise that the Prime Minister is going to win on Tuesday and that it is
in all our interests that he should win very substantially.
HUMPHRYS: Very substantially. If he fails,
therefore, to win very substantially, to achieve that very substantial
victory, that you talked about, he can't carry on, can he?
LANG: Well, let's wait and see what happens on
Tuesday and I think you'll find that those sort of questions don't become
necessary, because, I think, he will win substantially.
HUMPHRYS: But, from what you've said, in this
interview, he won't have cleared the air if it is not a very substantial, very
impressive victory?
LANG: Well, you can't tell the extent to which
the air is cleared, until you see what the outcome of the Election is on
Tuesday, until you see whether the Party comes together, as I believe it is
doing and will do behind him and whether we maintain the momentum, that has
appeared in the opinion polls, that has lifted us from the doldrums, where
we've been for two or three years now and begins to look towards the next
Election, now less than two years away.
HUMPHRYS: You say you can't tell but you can, can
you? I mean, you can perfectly well imagine the result of a victory that is
less than what you say is necessary. That's to say very impressive.
Substantial victory, you can imagine the effect that that would have.
LANG: But, we're not in the business of
imagining the nature of victory. We're in the business of working to the
victory.
HUMPHRYS: Indeed.
LANG: We're confident that it is moving our
way from the very strong start at the outset, when we were surprised by the
spontaneous welling-up of support from Members of Parliament in large numbers
and from the Constituency Associations, right at the very beginning.
Instinctively, I think, everyone in our Party thought he was absolutely right
to have taken this decision. We've moved from there and, now, we are working
in great detail and will continue doing so, right up until the close of polls,
to make sure that what we believe is happening is what actually happens on the
day the votes are cast.
HUMPHRYS: But, if what you believe is happening,
doesn't happen. If you don't get the sort of victory that you say is
necessary, then, the problem is that it will have failed to clear the air. It
will have failed to still the dissent within the Party and the whole exercise
will have blown up in your face, won't it?
LANG: Well, let me tell you one reason why I
think that is not a realistic scenario to consider at the present time. What
has happened in the last week is that the strength of character of John Major,
the man, has come through very strongly. Now, those of us who have worked very
closely with him, over the last few years, have always known that he is a
strong decisive character, with very sound judgment, with great analytical
powers, with great person-to-person warmth - a man of great range of leadership
skills. But, that hasn't always got through to the Electorate and in the face
of some of the comments from some in the Press and some in politics, generally,
that has been blurred. It has been blurred, partly, because we have been
disunited as a party. What he has done is to demonstrate not only great
integrity, in the way he's handled this campaign but, also, strong judgment and
detailed understanding of all the nuances of policy that are so important, if
you're actually going to make those policies work. It isn't a matter of-it's a
matter of keeping one's feet firmly on the ground and that's the kind of
politics that he's good at, as well as having the broader vision of where we're
going.
HUMPHRYS: And so you're saying that all that will
have got across to the electorate, this relatively small number of Tory MPs,
and therefore he will win big on Tuesday.
LANG: I believe so.
HUMPHRYS: And you believe so. But you've also said
that if he doesn't, if there is not this impressive victory or at least this is
the impression that I'm taking from what you've said, he is not going to have
cleared the air and that's what is so crucially important here. Because that is
a very ambitious task.
LANG: But John I haven't said that. You've
said that several times. I'm saying that he will win impressively on Tuesday
and that that will clear the air and I've given you a number of reasons.
HUMPHRYS: You've said rather more than that
though, with respect, haven't you. You've said that he will need to win
impressively, he will NEED that sort of victory if he's going to clear the air.
LANG: Again, I think this is what you are
saying - I am saying that he will win impressively and at the moment what is
happening is that the electorate, the members of parliament are almost all at
home in their constituencies, talking to their associations, taking soundings,
reflecting on what has happened over the last week and looking forward beyond
next Tuesday and deciding who best can unify us, behind whom can we best come
together right across the party: the right, the left, all spectrums, all shades
of opinion. And what has struck me most forcibly, particularly last week when
the House of Commons was in session and the Prime Minister was meeting
individuals and groups, is that the position that he has adopted and developed
with colleagues in cabinet and throughout government, on all the major issues
of the day in politics, the place he has adopted is the centre of gravity in
party political terms. It is the area behind which everyone can unite.
HUMPHRYS: And it's manifestly obvious isn't it
that he must have this substantial victory, this impressive victory, there
can't be any doubt about that can there?
LANG: I think the very act of holding a
leadership campaign, of laying one's job on the line, of putting one's party
and one's country ahead of one's personal position is such that it will have
the effect, that cathartic effect of making a step change in the structure of
British politics and in the standing of the Conservative Party.
HUMPHRYS: Only if it achieves the sort of victory
that you've talked about.
LANG: Well I'm telling you that I believe that
we will achieve....
HUMPHRYS: Yes but you've also acknowledged in the
course of this interview, that neither of us knows what those MPs and their
constituencies at the moment are going to do, it may well be that they'll be a
hundred and forty of them who decide for whatever reasons not to support the
Prime Minister.
LANG: We don't know and that is why we will
carry on working right up until the close of polls but I'm telling you that I
have a very good inclination as to what they are likely to do and what they are
likely to think as a result of consulting with their associations. They are
the people with whom they will be working in their constituencies together to
win victory at the next General Election.
HUMPHRYS: But it can't be true to say that the
mere fact of having held this contest is itself going to clear the air. Indeed
so far it's rather poisoned the air hasn't it, we've heard some rather nasty
things being said from both sides about the different parties involved, it's
exposed fishes within the party that in the past people like yourself had
denied existed: "just a few small troublemakers making trouble out there"
that's what you'd always said, now we know that that isn't the case, so
therefore all the more important, as you yourself say, that there be this
substantial victory.
LANG: And I think from different strands of
the party, there is recognition, increasingly, that the time now is to come
together as a party, that the best thing to do now is to reinforce the
authority of our Prime Minister and to end this contest decisively on Tuesday.
That is the feeling that I get is being instilled in the minds of my colleagues
now by their consultations in the constituency.
HUMPHRYS: Reinforce the authority of the Prime
Minister, in other words vote in very large numbers for the Prime Minister and
if they fail to do that the gamble will not have paid off.
LANG: It isn't a gamble. It isn't a gamble.
It is a considered judgement as to what is the best interests of the party, the
government and the country. I think everybody acknowledges that the Prime
Minister was right to do that, to take that decision to allow the election to
take place now rather than have a four or five month period of continuing
mounting speculation, rumours spreading and so on, just as we had last year
when nothing happened in the end and the year before.
HUMPHRYS: What you're saying is, if I read you
correctly, you know he will win big because he has to win big and if he doesn't
that's the end of the Prime Minister.
LANG: Those are your words. I believe that he
will win big and I believe that the mood of the country as well as the mood of
the party is that it is desirable to give the Prime Minister an impressive
endorsement so that he can go on delivering the increasingly successful
policies that we have right across the whole field of government.
HUMPHRYS: Ian Lang, thank you very much.
LANG: Thank you.
...oooOooo...
|