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ON THE RECORD
INTERVIEW WITH STEPHEN DORRELL MP
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 5.3.95
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: And with me now the Heritage Secretary,
Stephen Dorrell, one of the bright young things in the Cabinet, often spoken of
as a future Party Chairman, and one day who knows, party leader. Mr. Dorrell,
good morning.
You're looking at a bloodbath aren't
you?
STEPHEN DORRELL MP: No, we're not looking at anything
certain yet. I think if I may say so reports of our death have been somewhat
overwritten because these elections are still two months in the future, and
what's going to happen between now and the beginning of May is that we're going
to explain our case to the electorate. Explain, for example, that if you live
in a Tory Council, you're currently paying on average four hundred and thirty
pounds, Band C Council Tax. If you live in a Labour area you're spending five
hundred and sixty pounds on the local council. Do you actually want to spend a
hundred and thirty pounds more on average a year on your council? That's the
choice that we shall be presenting to the electorate between now and May.
HUMPHRYS: So you think you're going to do well in
May do you?
DORRELL: No but I'm not predicting the result in
May. What I'm saying to you is that I'm not accepting your prediction, nor am
I offering one in reply. What I'm saying is that we have an argument to
explain to the electorate between now and polling day.
HUMPHRYS: What would be well as far as you're
concerned? What would be alright as far as you're concerned in these coming
elections?
DORRELL: The objective of any political party in
fighting an election is to secure the maximum possible return of its own
candidates. I'm not setting targets, what I want to do is to secure the
maximum possible number of Conservative councillors in May for one reason -
because I think that's the best way of delivering high quality efficient public
services through local authorities. Local authorities are responsible for a
huge range of public services in Britain - Education, Housing, Social Services,
and when they're not run efficiently it's the electorate that suffers. I want
to see them run efficiently.
HUMPHRYS: And that's one reason but the other
reason of course is that it's hugely important to the party nationally isn't
it?
DORRELL: Of course it's important to the party to
win elections at every level but you see you paraded in your film a one term
Conservative councillor in Bury who's changed sides. I reply with him with Mr
Leo Mackinstry (phon) who isn't a one term councillor, he was an office holder
on Labour controlled Islington Council. He was a researcher to Labour's front
bench, he has recently made it clear that he no longer thinks that Labour
offers the best alternative either at local or at national level, because as he
said, Labour councils are the prisoners of an ideology of political correctness
and over reliance on their Trade Union support. He has articulated the case
and he should know, he's an ex-powerful figure in the Labour party that Labour
services are inefficient.
HUMPHRYS: It's a message that you've been trying
to get across for a long time but you obviously are not getting it across.
What's going to change between now and when we go to the polls in two months
time?
DORRELL: With respect that's an argument you can
always put to any political party after it's suffered an electoral reverse.
What we're engaged in between now and May is arguing the case for efficiently
run local government delivering high quality services. Arguing the case
against what Mr Blair and his cronies are arguing for in terms of Government,
not only are they arguing for inefficient methods in existing tiers of
Government, they're also arguing for a fifth tier of Government covering much
of the country. Not only have we got Brussels and Westminster and County
Councils and District Councils, Mr Blair thinks there should be a fifth
additional regional tier of Government with paid officials and paid councillors
too. Now I have to say my constituents in the East Midlands don't know of a
problem to which a fifth tier of Government is a solution.
HUMPHRYS: The problem is though that when we vote
in local elections, as one of the councillors in that film told us, some of us
are concerned about local issues, of course, but when it comes to putting that
cross on the ballot paper, we decide by and large on national issues, and
that's your problem isn't it. You're going to be judged nationally and
everything tells us that if you're going to be judged nationally you're going
to be found wanting.
DORRELL: Well I'm quite content to be judged at
either local or at national level, because if we get onto the national
arguments, the arguments are that as a result of the difficult medicine that
we've been taking over the last three years, we've now got one of the best
economic prospects this country has faced for a generation. We've seen over
the last eighteen months unemployment falling now by getting on for half a
million, we've seen low inflation, we've seen a balance of trade surplus at the
end of last year including a trade surplus with Japan which is something which
is unusual in our recent history. If you look forward on the economic and
national front, what you see is the prospect of a secure economic recovery
delivering improving living standards for individuals as well as money for
improving public services. That's the Conservative case at a national level,
reinforcing the case for efficient management of public services which we shall
be making at a local level.
HUMPHRYS: And yet that message is not getting
across, and your problem is that when the middle class voter turns out in May,
he or she is going to look at what's just happened to them. They've seen their
taxes higher than they've ever seen them before. They've seen mortgage income
tax relief falling, they've seen interest rates rising, they've seen the value
of their homes falling, job security, a huge problem for them. Those are the
things that actually matter to them.
DORRELL: Well, two points. Firstly you say the
argument isn't getting across. That's not an answer to the argument, that's
simply underlines the need to establish whether the argument is true or not.
The mere fact that the argument isn't....
HUMPHRYS: It's almost irrelevant, in a sense,
whether...
DORRELL: Oh, hang on a second. I'm sorry, I
certainly accept that it's irrelevant....
HUMPHRYS: ....from the point of view of the way
people are going to vote in two months time doesn't much matter, in one sense,
whether it's true, because if people think it isn't true they will vote
accordingly.
DORRELL: Either politicians try to deal in
realities, or else the whole argument is lost. Now, what I'm trying to do, is
to explain the case for the government at both national and local level. Now,
I recognise that the second point of your question, was to ask me about
undoubted middle class uncertainties, and concerns following the recent
recession. Of course, those are all true, but the best answer to those, is to
be able to demonstrate as we can that the prospect for the short and medium
term under a Conservative government is to avoid precisely the ups and downs of
the economic cycle which created those uncertainties.
HUMPHRYS: If it's all downs, then people are going
to be concerned about it, aren't they? I mean the recessions been over for two
or three years, three years according to Mr Major, and yet they're not seeing
the benefits of that.
DORRELL: And the best answer to those who are
concerned about job security, those who are concerned about the effect of
fluctuating mortgage rates on their disposable incomes, the best answer to
those people is to say that what we've created is economic circumstances where
growth is likely to continue, not just in the government's view, but in the
view of almost all the independent observers, growth will continue, delivering
improving job opportunities. It must be true that job insecurity gets less of
a problem as unemployment declines. It's now declined by getting on for half a
million, and as regards the fluctuations of the mortgage rate. Of course it's
true, that's caused enormous damage to the government standing among its core
supporters. It is precisely the prospect of stability going into the medium
term that offers the escape from those fluctuating mortgage rates.
HUMPHRYS: But people, you see, don't believe it.
They simply, all the evidence is, and you heard it again in that film there,
the evidence is that they don't believe it. Jam tomorrow. What they're
saying is actually after three years, we want a bit of jam now, we'd actually
quite like to feel better off, we would quite like to feel that our job is
going to be there in another two years, five years, ten years, and we don't
feel that, at least your core, bedrock, middle class supporters don't feel
that.
DORRELL: Well, with great respect, I'm not
offering jam tomorrow, I'm pointing out that these are rewards, these are
successes that are there today, successes in terms of job creation...
HUMPHRYS: But not helping people apparently.
DORRELL: I'm sorry, if you were one of the half a
million people who were on the unemployment register, nearly half a million,
and they're now no longer on the unemployment register, you will feel better.
HUMPHRYS: Yes but you know and I know that we're
talking about two different groups of people here, by and large the people
you're talking about there may not have been Tory supporters, they may have
been people on lower incomes. They will not be by and large the middle class
people whom you absolutely must have in your camp.
DORRELL: Yes I agree but look at how job security
develops as a fear in a community. It develops when people see in their own
place of employment the order book getting short, short time starting to
develop and people getting uncertain about whether their job will be there in
six or twelve months time.
Now there are many millions of people
now working in Britain who know that their employer far from shedding labour is
recruiting labour and that must contribute to a reversal of job insecurity. In
terms of interest rates, you said jam tomorrow, I'm promising jam tomorrow on
stable interest rates, that's not the case at all. Interest rates four years
ago stood at fifteen per cent, fifteen, sixteen per cent. They've risen by
one and a half per cent...
HUMPHRYS: Steady, steady upwards path.
DORRELL: One and a half per cent from the lowest
level since the early 1970s, still very low interest rates by comparison with
the average we've seen in recent years. Why is that? Interest rates are
relatively low still because inflation is low and the markets believe we shall
keep it low. If we jeopardise that then we're straight back into the cycles
which created precisely the uncertainties which you rightly point to.
HUMPHRYS: Even if you succeed in getting that
message, the economic message across, effectively you've still got this other
huge problem - the perception of the Tory party as a fundamental profoundly
divided party and voters don't like that.
DORRELL: You're quite right to say that if the
party is seen to be divided that willundermine our effectiveness at
explaining our case.
HUMPHRYS: And you wouldn't deny that it is seen to
be divided.
DORRELL: I certainly wouldn't deny we've had
difficulties over the last few months. What I think is now emerging in the
Cabinet, in the Parliamentary Party, I think you saw this last Wednesday and
certainly in the party in the country, I have no doubt whatever about that at
all, you're seeing right through the party is a recognition that we've actually
created economic circumstances that compare favourably with anything we've seen
in Britain for thirty years. We've seen over the last fifteen years a
transformation in the effectiveness and the quality of our public services.
The truth is that all of that is at risk of being thrown away if we don't
succeed in making those cases, and making the case on Europe which the Prime
Minister has made repeatedly and which is a case that the party can unite about
which is that what we're in favour of is a flexible, outward looking,
competitive Europe and we shall argue that case in the I.G.C. and every other
forum in the European context.
HUMPHRYS: You say all of that is in danger of
being thrown away.
DORRELL: It's in danger of being thrown away if
we can't reverse the standing in the opinion polls with which you started. Now
you started with a prediction, I'm not interested in predictions. I recognise
the party has a problem and we have to make the argument in order to rebuild
our electoral support. The argument seems to me to be one of the best
arguments that any political party has had in my political lifetime. We have
the opportunity to make it to win back the support we've lost over the last
three years.
HUMPHRYS: But you are divided as a party as to the
solution and that's something you'll never be able to persuade people
otherwise. That is your Achille's heel isn't it?
DORRELL: With great respect I don't believe we
are divided over...
UMPHRYS: Well you saw it in Bury there on the
ground.
DORRELL: Except that there's the perception of
division on the European issue, I don't believe that on the great majority of
what we're about, we are at all divided.
HUMPHRYS: But Europe, as Mr Major said, is the
most important issue facing this......single European currency the most
important issue of the century.
DORRELL: And you say the party voting virtually
all in the same lobby on Wednesday night because the Prime Minister set out
there a policy for Europe around which the Tory Party both in parliament and
outside parliament can unite. But it's an important issue, Europe, but it's by
no means the only issue. If you're concerned about middle class insecurities,
if you're concerned about the quality of education, the quality of the health
service, those are all important issues too, and on all of those issues, the
party has an extremely strong case to make, and one which I believe will
persuade the electorate, if they are given the opportunity to hear it.
HUMPHRYS: But you've been trying to make that case
now for years. You've got two months in which to make it before these next
terribly important elections. It must worry you that at the very least at
these elections you are going to lose an important number of foot soldiers, the
people who are the cement that holds this party together, in the language of
your own chairman, Mr Handley.
DORRELL: Yes, I agree entirely with that
language. I am not concerned to make predictions about what will happen in
May. What I'm concerned to do, is to use opportunities such as your programme,
and hundreds of others around the country, to explain the case for what we have
done, what we want to go on doing, and the extent to which it is endangered by
the alternatives available. Actually one of the interesting things going on in
local government at the moment, is the decline of the Liberals. We've seen
across the country Conservative councillors face, tend to face, Labour
councillors in one part of the country and Liberal councillors in another. My
own home city of Worcester which saw us last Thursday taking back a seat which
we'd lost to the Liberals a couple of years ago.
HUMPHRYS: Ah, but that's only because so many
people voted for Tony Blair in that particular case, or for the Labour party in
that particular case. So that isn't one you really want to boast about, is it,
because when you look at the details of those figures, it's actually not good
news for you.
DORRELL: Well, it's not bad news, when there's -
we lost a seat to the Liberals, which we now take back and have a Tory
councillor.
HUMPHRYS: It used to be a safe seat. And the
Liberal Democrats vote split because people voted for the Labour Party, that's
exactly your problem.
DORRELL: Well, hang on a second. If we can see a
picture where the people are deserting the Liberals...
HUMPHRYS: For Labour...
DORRELL: ..recognising the clear choice is an
argument between us and Labour, then at least we're focussing on the real issue
in any election, and then between us and Labour I simply revert to the
proposition that if you vote Tory, the average band C council tax, four hundred
and thirty pounds, the average band C tax in Labour, five hundred and sixty
pounds, that is a price difference between Tory and Labour of nearly three
pounds a week.
HUMPHRYS: If the elections are anything like as
bad as we expect, and Bill Bush has been accurate about these things as in the
past to a matter of seats, then Mr Major is ultimately going to have to carry
the can, isn't he?
DORRELL: No, I'm not forecasting what is going to
happen because there is two months between now and polling day. It's a very
odd form of democratic election that invites me to analyse the results two
months before the electorate get their say.
HUMPHRYS: Stephen Dorrell, thank you very much.
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