How William Hague would have dealt with Tony Blair's PMQs attack lines

tony blair did he didn't really um enjoy the house of commons he obviously enjoyed most other things about being prime minister for 10 years but you know as we all recall that the second he stood down as prime minister he was he resigned his seat he was straight out some of aleister campbell's prepared put downs to use on you william hague they include if the tories want a comedian as a leader they might as well go for bernard manning though he might not be right wing enough um how would you have dealt with that i can't remember whether you used some of these i didn't have that much difficulty uh dealing with tony blair's um put downs at prime minister's equipment it's good to know from it that he was seriously rattled at poq's unfortunately for me though there was nothing else i was doing at all that was seriously rattling him in any way just a prime minister's questions uh but yeah we used to have a real fight at prime minister's questions and it's interesting now to see the uh you know the thinking that was going on uh behind the scenes tony blair was never that good though at delivering the devastating then even though he was brilliant obviously at so many other things so his timing was off was it yeah he wasn't a natural comedian you know tony blair did he didn't really um enjoy the house of commons i think he obviously enjoyed most other things about being prime minister for 10 years but you know as we all recall that the second he stood down as prime minister he was he resigned his seat he was straight out he bolted out of the door of the house of commons uh while we were still trying to applaud him and recognize him so he couldn't get out of there fast enough and that was never the bit of it that he enjoyed and it was a bit of an awful chore for him i think that's reflected in these alistar campbell now though this is really awful chore on a wednesday of having to answer questions from that damn hague and all the others so um you know that was never his forte he's very good at many other things does it ever get embarrassing uh william in your view because i was watching lindsey hoyle sort of popping away like a sort of ineffective supply teacher as a bunch of um sort of superannuated school children bray and and part back themselves and it's all very shouty shouty and um is there moments where when you were doing it uh where you think this doesn't necessarily present us to the nation or the world in a particularly good light well yes sometimes however um you know a lot of americans always say if wouldn't it be great if our president had to come down to congress and answer questions yeah because they'd have to be on top of the job you know this does is part of the mix really that forces the prime minister to know the answers to questions that they have to endure prime minister's questions so i think it's positive and also you know there are quiet parliaments in the world but where are they they're in pyongyang and they're in beijing and isn't it better to have a parliament where people can shout at each other a bit as long as it's within certain rules i think it is on balance william you've written your column and praise of rishi sunak it looks like it's going to be him in the final with one of uh kemi badenock liz truss and penny morden and the point you make in your column really is that he was he's the person you think who is best suited to this very very demanding job not least of all because he once said he was going to get up at 5 00 a.m to join a farmer milking cows in your old constituency yes that's well that's an example just because of that no i'm really the point i'm making my column is i've got a bit of a unique vantage point on rishi's super well an absolutely unique vantage point really which is that he succeeded me as an mp in my old constituency which i'd represented 26 years uh richmond yorkshire so i really saw him at close quarters for quite a few months you know how he acquitted himself around the constituency and i thought then that he was a totally exceptional person of all the thousands of election candidates i've met in my life this one was the top you know he really stood out and they're getting up to go milk this is just an example of how he had to go and understand everything even when i said you know you don't really have to do that you could just nod and say yeah i'm sympathetic with that but no he wanted to go he had to be around the factory production lines and he had to go visit the small business and help them out for a day and see how they worked and they you know he and i do think we're going to need as prime minister in this very very difficult couple of years to come somebody who really likes to get to the root of the problem has an intellectual grasp of it all as well as high standards and this is the we've got somebody like that so what's the problem this is the man the debates themselves do you think were you cringing during the debates when rishi tsunac and liz trust were having you know slightly difficult exchanges or are you disappointed that we're not going to see more of that well i was enjoying it a bit like everybody else you know there were some good zingers in there i was admiring that to say as a debater um but i think they were right to pull out of the rest because really you know the broadcasters have an incentive to get them to fight with each other and it becomes like love isla you know a more important version of love island where if you start getting on together we're going to change the rules and make sure you attack each other um and that was really what was happening oh all ask each other a question well once you're into that you know you have to ask a devastating question don't you so i think they were right actually to pull out of the other debate provided there is plenty of scrutiny and debate in the rest of the process which i think there will be once they're down tomorrow to two candidates who then go out as everybody knows for a vote for the party members there will be lots of campaigning around the country and hustings and probably debates and and that will be a healthy thing but they were being set up to to fight with each other actually you were you troubled by kemi badernock in that context saying i think net zero is a red herring what would happen if we moved it to 2060 or 2017 we're not going to be here yes i am troubled by that you know that is um that's no longer a defensible position and i completely agree with what uh sonja just said uh and i although i think kemi baiden has had quite a variety of things about this you know apparently yesterday she did tell the conservative environment network a group that i'm very uh supportive of that uh she was signed up to net zero in 2015 and then she gave other different answers um so if she was going to be a serious candidate in this process she'd really have to sort that out because really everybody can see well hopefully everybody can see that in the country that this is the main thing happening in the world and it is going to dominate everything else unless we take the necessary action in this decade to avert a temperature rise of more than one and a half degrees we're way off track at the moment as a world uh on that so it's going to become a bigger and bigger issue i think in in the months and years ahead and leading politicians have to absolutely get on to that as the prince of wales has been for a long time and that might mean doing painful things i remember you saying before in this program ages ago that this is if you think the poll tax was unpopular they're gonna have to do some things that impact human behavior aren't there at some point down the line well absolutely because um it's an opportunity as well remember because um what what should you do as a country in this situation you should really lead on the new green technologies on the new materials that are necessary to construct those technologies on being a country that attracts talent to it because it's one of the leading countries in reducing emissions and having the best possible environment so that there's an opportunity in there but it it's a very painful thing for politicians because it means telling people you can't do what you used to do or this is going to be more expensive and so it's going to be agonizing for governments all over the world for for for dictators as well you know look at what's happening with temperatures in china uh at the moment uh scorching heat wave across across east asia and even dictators don't like to tell people that they really have to change this is going to be the biggest test of leadership in the world in the coming decades [Music] you

Channel: Times Radio

Views: 3,341

Keywords: timesradio, william hague, tony blair, hague, william, blair, william hague blair, william hague (politician), tony, william hague funny, william hague syria, william hague speech, tony blair president, tony blair on manoeuvres, william hague 1977 conservative party conference, william haig, william pitt, blairite, money, funny parliament, uk parliament funny, parliament, alastair campbell, Bernard Manning, PMQs

Id: rFaYZ2_94NQ

Length: 8min 43sec (523 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 19 2022