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ON THE RECORD
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 7.5.95
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good afternoon. Well, what IS to be
done? Tory Party workers want something to happen after the Thursday massacre
... but their leaders it seems don't agree with them. I'll be putting their
worries live to the man who many think will have to carry the can ... the
Party Chairman, Jeremy Hanley. That's after the news read by Moira Stuart.
NEWS
HUMPHRYS: Laura Trevelyan reporting there. Well
Jeremy Hanley, we know now as a result of that interview in the Mail this
morning what Mr Major thinks needs to be done - better communication - in
short. Wasn't that your job?
JEREMY HANLEY: Well certainly communication is one of
the jobs that I've got and it's clear that we haven't got the message through
in the way that the electorate really need to understand the message because
the policies are right and the policies are coming out exactly as we need to
help with the economic recovery of the country and that's what helps provide
the better services which we're providing too. And the Prime Minister, I
believe, does have a gift, he has a gift of talking to people at grassroot
level, he has a gift of communicating with people as he showed at the last
General Election and what he said today in the newspapers is greatly to be
welcomed because it means therefore that he will be more upfront with the
communication with local people as indeed is his natural instinct.
HUMPHRYS: But if that was your job and you said
before the election "I will carry the can, I will bear the responsibility if
things don't go wrong", haven't you got to consider your position now?
HANLEY: Well I'm not going to be one of those
who would slink from the field of battle when things get tough, I'm certainly
not going to surrender, I will carry on and do this job for as long as the
Prime Minister wants me to because it is a job that is extremely important I
believe in trying to get through to the people exactly what the benefits of
government policies have been.
HUMPHRYS: But you failed, by your own admission.
HANLEY: Clearly we have much more work to do.
If you look at the economy you will see that it is succeeding, but people don't
feel that themselves.
HUMPHRYS: And that's down to you in part because
you didn't get the message across and so what I'm...
HANLEY: In part it is.
HUMPHRYS: So what I'm suggesting to you is that if
by your own admission you failed, should you not offer your resignation.
HANLEY: It's not for me, as I say, to surrender,
it's for the Prime Minister to decide on the make-up of his government but what
we have seen, of those election results on Thursday, if we are a sensitive
party, if we are actually to take the messages, which I believe we should take,
then certainly we've got to decide where we put our efforts to make sure that
the electorate do appreciate what is happening and that's exactly what the
Prime Minister is doing. He is saying, now look, let's listen to what they've
said, they've given their verdict last Thursday, a verdict which as you have
said, is clear for all to see. It's not, by the way, a verdict that they are
completely against our policies, if you just look at the voting strength. But
there's a very important point, which is that only thirty-eight per cent of the
public of this country voted last Thursday. Only eighteen per cent of the
public were so fired with enthusiasm for Mr Blair and his new Labour Party that
they went out and supported it. Now that means that there are a lot of people
there sitting at home waiting to see what the results of these policies are and
that shows...
(BOTH TALKING AT THE SAME TIME)
HUMPHRYS: .....some of the largest turn outs were
in Liberal Democrat and Labour areas. But let me return to this terribly
important point, you said and you've repeated it this morning, we are failing,
we have failed to get our message across. You are one of the men whose prime
responsibility is to do that. You say "I won't retreat from the field of
battle" that's one way of looking at it, but should you not because there is an
honourable tradition of resignation within the Conservative Party, you have to
go a fair way back to find it admittedly but nonetheless, should you not say
"Prime Minister, here's my resignation if you want to accept it"
HANLEY: Look, it's for a Prime Minister to
decide who has what....
HUMPHRYS: Well of course it is....it's his
decision whether to accept it or not. Have you considered it?
HANLEY: But there's no need to resign if the
Prime Minister can make a decision whenever he wants, and he will. I'm
absolutely certain that the Prime Minister will decide what is best for the
country and then for the party but he has made many decisions which have been
in the national interest and I'm certain that with these policies he has shown
a great courage, a great courage to act in the national interest and when the
time comes he will no doubt decide on the make-up of his government. That is
what a Prime Minister's job is.
HUMPHRYS: But that question that I put to you,
have you....when you woke up on Friday morning and saw how bad it was, I'm
assuming that you went to bed at all on Thursday night which you probably
didn't...
HANLEY: A couple of hours sleep.
HUMPHRYS: Did you not think: well, I said I would
bear the responsibility if it went badly wrong, it did go badly wrong, I should
now think about offering the Prime....of course it's for him whether to accept
it or not, but as a man of honour I should offer him my resignation. Did that
occur to you?
HANLEY: First of all, the Prime Minister gave me
this job, he gave me this job..
HUMPHRYS: I accept that.
HANLEY: He gave me this job through thick and
thin, until such time as he decides otherwise. Now...
HUMPHRYS: That wasn't the question though, the
question was whether you'd considered your position and thought maybe I should
offer him my resignation: it's for him to decide.
HANLEY: I'll tell you what I did consider. I
considered what can we do to make things so much better so that people actually
treat not only the Prime Minister, but the record of this government better
than they have with this election result. Now that meant that I've got to
redouble all my efforts to try to make sure that we do get across the message..
HUMPHRYS: So you didn't consider the possibility
of...
HANLEY: Can I answer one point that you made..
HUMPHRYS: I'd like to you to answer that specific
point..
HANLEY: No, I'm trying to answer one of your
questions, there are rather a lot.
HUMPHRYS: Right I'll slim it down if you like,
I'll repeat the one, the central one as far as I was concerned for the moment
anyway..
HANLEY: Let me answer one question that you put,
you said that I was responsible for this election campaign, I take full
responsibility for that campaign, I take full responsibility for the way that
we actually said to people exactly what the good record of Conservative
councillors were throughout the country.
HUMPHRYS: The campaign was a disaster.
HANLEY: The campaign was not a disaster.
HUMPHRYS: The result was a disaster, so what
you're saying here is the operation was successful, what a pity the....
(BOTH TALKING AT THE SAME TIME)
HANLEY: I thoroughly agree the result was most
disappointing, indeed a disaster is how you've phrased it and I wouldn't be far
short of that. But the campaign and I stick to this, the campaign exposed the
dangers of Labour councils, it exposed their inefficiency and their
ineffectiveness, it exposed in certain areas where they are corrupt, where
there are police investigations, internal labour investigations and none of
those can be swept under the carpet just because of an election result. They
also showed the good record of Conservative councils and they'll be many places
over the next year that will regret perhaps what they did because we've proved
during our campaign that Labour councils cost you very much more. Now, I
therefore will stand by our campaign but I must also of course recognise that
people are very upset at the moment, very disillusioned at the moment because
they don't feel the benefit of the policies which we've introduced and that is
the challenge of the months ahead.
HUMPHRYS: Right, well you've answered that
question, not quite the one I asked you. Let me just try once more to get this
answer from you. Did you consider offering your resignation when you realised
how bad it had been?
HANLEY: I did not for one very simple reason.
That I've been given this job by the Prime Minister, as I say through thick and
thin, it is my job to fight even when times are tough. It is not my job to
slink, as I said, off the field of battle, that is not for me, that is for the
Prime Minister to decide, and if he wants me to carry on with this task, I'd do
so most willingly. Some of the best parts of the job are meeting people and
listening to them. When he appointed me he told me "go out and listen to them
and bring back what they say, tell me fearlessly" he said "don't in any way
pull your punches, say exactly what they're saying and say it to the other
cabinet ministers" and that I've done and that I will continue to do.
HUMPHRYS: Don't you think some of your colleagues
might say "it would have been the honourable thing to do, to offer my
resignation - it's upto the Prime Minister to decide of course.
HANLEY: You seem to be trying to push this one,
you know, beyond the bounds of reason. I've said very clearly indeed that I
regard my duty, my loyalty to the Prime Minister to serve him as he wants me to
be served, in other words if he wants me to serve him in this particular task,
I'd do so. I take the responsibility for the campaign, yes I listen to what the
people have said and I will...well over the next few weeks and months, without
any doubt assess what they have said, listen to them still further. And the
Prime Minister will be taking the lead in that and that I think will be of
tremendous advantage to our party nationally.
HUMPHRYS: But it is more than just communication,
isn't it, it's more than just a breakdown of communication. In some ways it
seems that the party, the leadership, has lost it's political nous. There are
too many silly things happening that upset your workers and in turn, then,
they're unable to get the message across to your potential supporters.
HANLEY: Well, I'll say two things. First of
all, it is far harder being in government than being in opposition. John
Major, and the whole cabinet, have to make hundreds of decisions each week,
some of them very difficult indeed. They are all, I hope, in the national
interest. They may not be in the short term party political interest, but I
believe that the interests of our party do actually coincide with the interests
of the nation in due course, and I am certain that by the time we get to the
general election, the interest of the party will have coincided with the
interests of the nation as are economic recovery comes through.
The second thing that I think is
important is that Mr Blair, of course, doesn't have to make any decisions, he
has to make up what his next sound bite is. That's what he spends his time
trying to do, so it is sometimes difficult, as I say, being in government.
Now, when you say surely there have been some silly things happening, well, I
think it is true that occasionally the media decide to concentrate on some
small issue, and blow it out of all proportion. Sometimes they are justified.
But sometimes they are not, and sometimes they are playing the opposition
agenda. The opposition, Labour and Liberals, were trying desperately hard not
to concentrate on local government issues. Labour's record in local government
is atrocious, and they were trying to do anything but concentrate on their own
record, and so they clutch at things that happen nationally, where there may be
some sort of story that's been exposed, and gleefully try and work it for all
they can, especially during local government election week.
HUMPHRYS: So, the line is then, that governments
difficult. It's media getting it all up. It's all the media's fault?
HANLEY: Anybody listening to me would not
actually agree with that interpretation. Government is difficult, yes, but it
also has great joys too. The fact that we can actually recover this nation
economically, which the Labour party couldn't do. The fact that we are
actually producing better services, more patients in the National Health
Service, rather than causing a whole . . . as Mr Prescott was saying the other
day, that they want a revolution again in the National Health Service. There
are great joys in government, too.
HUMPHRYS: But you're saying you dismiss the way I
summarise what you just said, but that is just exactly what you said. You said
government's difficult . . .
HANLEY: Yes.
HUMPHRYS: The media getting it all up because the
Labour Party is exploiting our difficulties. Well, I thought that was the job
of the opposition to exploit the government's difficulties, that's what it's
all about, and if you can't cope with that, as you manifestly haven't been
doing, sometimes by your own admission over the last weeks and months, it
proves my point, doesn't it? You've lost your political antenna.
HANLEY: Of course, opposition is meant to
exploit governments, of course they are, but they're also meant to produce
their policies too, and show why they should be . . .
HUMPHRYS: But not necessarily two years before
they go to the electorate, and we'll get those, but in the meantime.
HANLEY: Hang on a second, we've just had local
government elections. They didn't say a thing about local government
elections.
HUMPHRYS: It didn't seem to bother the electorate.
HANLEY: Mr Blair came out with figures that were
patently phony, and that, as you say, didn't seem to bother the electorate, it
didn't bother the press either. How many members of the press actually said
these figures are phony, they were proved phony a year ago, they're phony now
as well, and if they were phony for Mr Blair to say them this year, which I
know they were, then what else is phony about Mr Blair?
HUMPHRYS: So are you saying that is this . . .
because what I'm doing, is I'm sort of looking for lines of defence or attack,
whichever you prefer. Are you saying that you can't do much about anything,
you, in the Tory Party, until the Labour Party tells you what it's going to do,
then you can attack it, but that's hardly a strategy, is it?
HANLEY: You see, you've said that perhaps I
should consider resigning after the local government campaign. That campaign
was wholly honest. Everything I said that was positive about Conservative
local government . . .
HUMPHRYS: But we dealt with that.
HANLEY: No, no we haven't finished with it,
because everything I said was positive, everything I said about the Labour
party was right too, so the campaign goes on.
HUMPHRYS: The operation was successful, but the
patient died, you see, so you can't keep going back to that, can you, saying
that in future . . .
HANLEY: You can keep saying what is true as
often as possible until it gets through. Now about this government, we can
still . . .
HUMPHRYS: Well that rather implies to me, that the
voters are pretty thick, until it gets through, you keep saying, you sound like
a teacher in grade two B or something, you know, keep telling those stupid kids
because if you don't keep telling them they'll never get the message.
HANLEY: I didn't say that, but what I do say is
that sometimes if you've got the right policies, as we have on the economy, as
we have on the delivery of public services, if you've got the right policies,
then it is right to keep hammering out those truths, those successes of the
government. If John Major is actually creating the strongest growing economy
in the whole of Europe, if the Japanese, if the Americans will recognise that,
if almost every other country in the world recognises the strength of our
industrial base, the strength of our exports, the fact that we have tackled
inflation better than almost any other nation in Europe, the fact that we're
tackling unemployment, that we have better unemployment reductions that Spain
or France, and that the minimum wage is dangerous, that the social chapter
would shackle our businesses, surely one has to keep hammering out those
messages.
HUMPHRYS: But you see . . .
HANLEY: Because they are right, and therefore if
the electorate at this moment doesn't feel personally, in their pocket, that
actually the recovery is affecting them, you have to still keep telling them
the truth and then, as time goes on, they will begin to feel that that truth
was right. The trouble with Mr Blair is that he changes his mind so often.
We've had values, we've had policies, and we stick to them, because they are
right. Now the communication may certainly have been, if not deficient, then
certainly not good enough for people to appreciate exactly what is happening to
this country, so on that direction we've got to keep going, and we must keep
asking people what they want of the Conservative Party, what the deficiencies
are, keep listening to our grass-roots. That's what the Prime Minister's
initiative is all about.
HUMPHRYS: But it isn't, you keep saying they don't
understand what we're doing. Your difficulty is, it's not just they the
voters, it's your party workers who are looking for something from you, who now
seem to want something new that they can offer the people who ought to be
supporting them, who ought to be voting for you, but they can't seem to find
that, and nothing you've told me in that answer suggests that there is anything
new in the locker. And all you can say is "we're going to do the same thing
that we've been doing all this time, and just keep telling them that's it's
good for them". We'll give them the same old medicine and they must learn to
enjoy that medicine.
HANLEY: No, that's not again what I said. I do
think that what we need to do . . .
HUMPHRYS: Well there's something somewhere in that
case, because I couldn't near anything new in that.
HANLEY: What I'm saying is that the policies are
right. The policies will come good, and people will feel the benefit of those
policies. Now, that is true. What is wrong is the way we have been putting
our message across, and I take full responsibility for my share of that,
without any doubt, and what the Prime Minister is saying is we must get closer
to people on the grass-roots. Now I've been doing that for the last few
months, and he and the rest of the government recognise that it's the people
who gave us power that need to be listened to, and we've got to do that, and
there will be things that they say which we'll have to consider changing. Of
course if you remember the much maligned Maples research, back last summer, the
scientific research was absolutely valid, it was asking people who had voted
for us at the last general election, and then they were showing their
disaffection in one way or another, and we were listening to what they had to
say, and in fact our party conference was based on what they said, what they
wanted, and we did hammer out some of the successes of the government; because
if other people aren't going to hammer out the successes, the good things that
have happened under this government, who is but us?
HUMPHRYS: But, if you can't offer them something
new and I take your point that what you're saying is that the medicine, at the
moment is the right medicine. You've made that point very, very firmly in this
interview - if you can't offer them something new, then perhaps what you've got
to be able to offer them and I'm talking now about your party workers out there
in the field who are feeling very bruised and battered, at the moment - if not
suicidal - is the sort of inspirational leadership that's going to take you
forward. Now that perhaps is your problem. You don't have that inspirational
leadership - that star quality.
HANLEY: Well I disagree because if you take the
last General Election campaign. The Prime Minister - I think, almost all
people would ajudge - won a campaign that the wise pundits said he could not
win.
HUMPHRYS: And that was because he's an
inspirational leader?
HANLEY: Yes. Most people believe that that was
because of his own character, his own psyche. The way in which he relates to
individuals.
HUMPHRYS: I'm not talking about character. Many
people would say that the Prime Minister has very many good qualities. We
heard the Chancellor this morning say that he is a nice man. Well, fine, but
I'm talking about this sort of...the star quality that The Daily Telegraph
talked about yesterday. The man on the white charger.
HANLEY: I would far rather and I'm sure the
whole of the British people would far rather a person of substance, rather than
an image. We've, after all, got that image. We saw with the Clause Four
debate, just five/six days before Local Government Election.
HUMPHRYS: Yeah but with Margaret Thatcher you had
both didn't you, you had the person of substance and you had somebody who was
able to inspire people.
HANLEY: With Mr Blair we have all froth and
bubble. It's all image. There is no substance there. On the same day as Mr
Blair was standing there on the platform....
HUMPHRYS: I'm not talking about Mr Blair.
HANLEY: ...Mr Prescott was talking about
renationalisation.
HUMPHRYS: I'm not talking about Mr Blair. I'm
talking about your own party.
HANLEY: ...he was talking about abandoning
competitive tendering. He was introducing a new strikers' charter. The
reality underneath the image is something which the British public will, I
believe, notice more and more over the next two years.
HUMPHRYS: Are you saying that in the Tory Party
there isn't somebody with both those inspirational qualities - the white knight
on the charger, or whatever it is - plus the substance that you talk about?
HANLEY: I would far rather have substance,
coupled with ability and courage. And the Prime Minister has shown in his own
way and it's a way which I find inspirational, He has shown, after all, how we
can try and achieve peace in Northern Ireland. Permanent peace in Northern
Ireland was but a dream some years ago. He, by his own particular skills has
managed to square that circle and I hope continues to do so.
HUMPHRYS: So, in a nutshell your message to the
Party workers is: Steady as she sinks!
HANLEY: No, my message to the Party workers is
that we have a great Prime Minister who won us the last General Election with
the biggest single vote that any political Party ever in British history has
achieved. He got a mandate for five years and he deserves that mandate so as
to show that the policies which he's introduced - the courageous policies -
will, actually, come good and people will feel them. And, therefore, I have
full confidence in the Prime Minister and so should you.
HUMPHRYS: Jeremy Hanley, thank you very much,
indeed.
HANLEY: Right.
...oooOooo...
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