The Prime Ministers We Never Had - Unscripted Reflections by Steve Richards - 8 - Ken Clarke

[Music] ken Clarke had cause to reflect once that he had a new hobby in life and that was to fight and lose conservative leadership contests and indeed there was an extraordinary sequence in his career where he fought three of them in the space of eight years after the 1997 election and he lost the lot so indeed it was a new hobby and yet he still qualifies as a prime minister we never had for several reasons one of them being the wider context indeed of those contests that he fought and lost in number 10 and it was Tony Blair's number 10 when all these Tory leadership contests were fought they had a similar discussion at each one 97 2001 and 2005 they looked at the candidates and the one they feared most was Clarke and there was good reason for that that opinion polls at the time of each of those contests suggested that amongst voters at large he was the most popular and when people analyzed the plight of the Conservative Party during this period they often wondered and reflected on whether Ken Clark this popular ebullient extrovert figure could have saved them more quickly than it took but he lost all of them there are other reasons why he qualifies as a prime minister we never had and some of them are in some respects counterintuitive to the way he's perceived he was an extraordinarily well qualified prime minister we never had one of the most well qualified in the series of prime ministers we never had that we're looking at in the series and that is because of the extraordinary range of ministerial offices that he held he was in there for a long period of the Thatcher era and he held all the big jobs except foreign critera he was interested in Foreign Affairs but he didn't get that one but he was a reforming education secretary a reforming health secretary and a radical Home Secretary and he then became a chancellor in a period of great political turbulence the job major era and he guided the economy to a relatively stable place by 1997 didn't help them win the next election but the economy was in pretty good shape and that is a formidable range of ministerial qualifications it is interesting when you think of some of the prime ministers we've had David Cameron Tony Blair get into number ten with no ministerial experience here was someone more than ready in that respect and there was a particular reason why he was seen as a potential prime minister or indeed could have been if he presented himself in a slightly different way and that is this contrary to his image as someone on the Tauri left he was in some ways a reformer that chimed with the sort of Thatcherite beat of his party although he would never describe himself as a Thatcherite and in some ways wasn't obviously over europe and other issues too but if you look back at his ministerial career and divorce yourself from the ebullient attractive personality he could be a dry determined reformer when he was education secretary he briefed very openly that he was seeking to introduce grammar schools by the back door grammar schools by stealth and Margaret Thatcher who privately was a supporter of selection and all the rest of it was deeply cautious about this she as education secretary had famously abolished a lot of grammar schools and extended a comprehensive system not because she believed in it but because she had again against caricature a pragmatic streak he was ready to do it grammar schools by stealth then as health secretary he was the one who established the framing of the term reform in public services it was he as health secretary who introduced a degree of internal competition and internal markets that became the model for Tony Blair and David Cameron when they look to reform the NHS they look back and began they changed it but began with the Clark reforms and again it was not Thatcher pushing this but Clark it became known as Thatcherite reforms in public services she was cautious she said to him look wide maybe we should introduce a new national insurance increase to pay for the NHS he said we can make it more efficient through these reforms and he prevailed another characteristic of him is this determination to prevail to be unyielding and he was as a policymaker in those departments he was in his candor in that famous period that spanned the dramatic and fast fall of Margaret Thatcher on that famous night after battle one of the leadership contest in the autumn of 1990 when she had won two ones with cabinet ministers he Clarke was famously one of the more brutal in his candor about the fragility of her position in a way that she found devastating but he found necessary and he did it because he was as they said of him a big beast he wasn't gained to flounder and waffle he told her brutally and in this you can see the characteristics of leadership forming a reforming Minister determined to prevail a brave enough public figure to tell your leader and Prime Minister your time is up and then he became Chancellor and again somewhat against caricature he was an Orthodox Chancellor he was wary of public spending increases at a time when public services in some cases were pretty close to being on their knees he was very strict when those public spending rounds came round he was also and this was an era of course that was the last era when Chancellor's were in control of interest rates and rather like Roy Jenkins when Jenkins was Chancellor under the Harold Wilson Labour government in the 60s Ken Clarke was very prudent to use a Gordon Brown term when it came to interest rate decisions even in the lead-up to that 1997 election when it might have been the instinct of a more reckless Chancellor he didn't cut interest rates drastically Tony Blair and others expected into and he never did and Roy Jenkins was similarly rigid in economic policymaking up until the 1970 election both got credit for their rigidity but their parties lost elections subsequently there is an argument that Ken Clark was too prudent with public spending for example John Major's citizens charter which he made much of in which public services were meant to be absolutely for the citizens and citizens would have the right of redress when public services didn't come up to scratch was much harder to make sense of when public services were underfunded as I think most conservatives now accept they were in that period but he was a tough chancellor and in some ways as I say in terms of economics Thatcherite in ways that would have under different circumstances delighted his party and in some respects he was the star of that job major government whenever there was speculation about majors fragility and the speculation was intense for much of the period major was Prime Minister Ken Clarke the then Chancellor was talked of as a possible successor and when Ken Clarke sensed major was in deep trouble he said in his party conference speech he was a mighty Chancellor any enemy of John Major is an enemy of mine and this theatrical demonstration of loyalty was interpreted in some quarters as the exact opposite that he was showing his own great strength to such an extent it was almost patronizing to the fragile jaw major for what it's worth I think he meant it I don't think ken Clark at any point seriously contemplated challenging John Major when are many issues they actually agreed so there we have a chancellor perceived to have been successful and there has been much talk since that labor inherited a pretty buoyant economy in 1997 as I say there was an important proviso in this they inherited economy where public spending urgently needed to go up but nonetheless compared to some legacies it wasn't a bad one and it had all these other posts and in some respects he reformed and changed policy in a way that should have delighted the party faithful which of course raises a very very big question why didn't it why did he not become a prime minister or at least leader of his party because he had one other qualification as well before I answered the question and that is this that in terms of performance I think Ken Clark was the FIR of a new breed of politicians and that is the one who discovered the art of the political interview he was part of an era where big party rallies were in decline although he was quite a good speech deliverer but the political interview was becoming the most important stage for a politician and Clark was a brilliant interviewee he was candid funny tough and endearing and I can't remember a political interview even when he said things that were apparently embarrassing to himself like he hadn't read the Maastricht Treaty or he hadn't read the conservative manifesto in 2017 or whatever I can't remember one where at the end it did not appear as if he was emerging from the studio triumphant and it was a fantastic base for Clark to give you one example when he was Home Secretary in the early part of the major era the Chancellor was Norman Lamont it was well known that Kent Clark wanted the chance of the ship and Norman a month was in trouble because we had left the Exchange Rate Mechanism everything was wobbly and Norman Lamont although actually I think a rather good interviewee was scared to go near a studio in that period so quite often on programs like today you would hear the following introduction interest rates are soaring unemployment is going up here to discuss what's going wrong is the Home Secretary Ken Clark he lept on to any platform to talk about the economy in a way that was basically an unsubtle application for the top not the top job the chancellorship that he wanted and he got it he replaced Norman amant and I think now a necessary part of a leaders repertoire is to be able to perform effectively in the forum of the interview and he could and has flourished in that forum ever since which again raises the question why didn't he get it and the answer of course as is often the case with the prime ministers we never had is that strengths in some respects can be weaknesses in others he was so resolute that he was not going to change his views on the issue that divided his party Europe and in this sense there is another echo with Roy Jenkins another Prime Minister we never had when Roy Jenkins voted for Britain's membership of the then Common Market in the early 1970s against the leadership of his party Roy Jenkins gave up any hope realistically of ever becoming leader of that party Europe drove him above everything else and it has been the same with Ken Clarke and it shows that policy and differences with others over policy matter more than anything else when it comes to deciding who will lead a party this is something I think David Cameron underestimated when he held his referendum friendship means nothing when there are differences over policy Ken Clarke in that major cabinet was close to the likes of Michael Howard and Norman Lamont they were all at Cambridge together they were known as the Cambridge mafia but they disagreed over Europe already Lamont and Michael Howard were becoming intense Euroskeptics and Clarke was a passionate pro-european and the internal battles in that major government defined him more than anything else all the other things I've mentioned were sideshows for example there was a massive divide in the major cabinet over whether John Major should offer a referendum on Britain joining the Euro the single currency it seems like ancient history now but that battle was as intense as what form Britain should have some kind of relationship with the European Union after brexit in the may cabinet and Clark held out for a long time in his conversations with John major insisting that it would be madness to offer a referendum on an issue as complex as membership of the single currency and that with the British media being what it was very very difficult for a government to win in the end he conceded somewhat out of character but he came to recognize that without that offer this conservative parliamentary party might fall apart the reason I say there are lessons in all of this for David Cameron is I think David Cameron had an overstated faith that friendship would determine the way some of his cabinet colleagues would campaign in his brexit referendum he thought the fact that he was mates with Michael Gove would be more important than gos convictions which were in favor of brexit friendship is not the overriding factor in politics it's what people believe in the fundamental policy areas and as I say that major cabinet was full of friends and they were fighting a civil war over Europe and Clarke along with Michael Heseltine about probably the same level of intensity were the pro Europeans and when that government collapsed in 1997 slaughtered in the New Labour landslide Clarke was one of those left standing there weren't that many his main foe in the cabinet Michael Portillo had lost his seat michael heseltine who's still recovering somewhat from his heart attack but there he was and to give him credit it didn't cross his mind to leave politics there are some in this modern era of politics that the moment they are out of a cabinet they they leave and do other things he is a political addict and he was there to fight and most particularly to fight leadership contests but this is another lesson of leadership or an inability to win a leadership contest a lot of people ask during this mad phase between 1997 and 2005 when he fought and lost three contests what's wrong with the Conservative Party why aren't they electing this popular figure who could communicate and in a way that voters respond to and the answer is they disagreed with him on Europe and you cannot have a leader at odds with a party there is a neat symmetry between party and leader when Labour elected Tony Blair in 1994 it was a sign that they were willing to compromise on a whole range of issues in order to win it showed that they were ready to win in 1997 the ideological battle over Europe in the Conservative Party was only just beginning so Ken Clarke fought that contest some of his allies said look for goodness sake just trim on Europe and he couldn't and in a way it's greatly to his credit that he didn't he made it absolutely clear that he was in favor of the single currency he was a passionate pro-european and so on and he didn't have a hope of winning even though every poll remember they had been slaughtered and they were desperate to work out a way back every poll showed he was the most popular in the country but he didn't win and if by some freakish chance that had happened it is very difficult to see how ken Clark could have led them there were other odd moments during this period in one of his leadership contests when it was clear he couldn't win on his own he formed a wacky alliance with John redwood the passionate Euroskeptic and again this was a symptom of great unease within a party that you could have two serious absolutely internally opposed figures standing on the same leadership ticket didn't get anywhere it was absurd and they sort of knew it but that was his attempt at expediency and it jarred because he can't do expediency he can only say what he thinks and do what ik thinks and in the third contest again it was Europe one of the attacks on David Cameron is that he claimed to be a moderniser but didn't take his party on over Europe the issue that had actually tormented it for decades and in fairness to Cameron you can sort of see why because again there was Ken Clark fighting that leadership contest again some of his supporters saying please trim over Europe and then you might win it but he couldn't and Cameron merely kept his message to his party on Europe we must stop banging on about it quite so much in other words we don't need to change our approach just talk about it less that isn't really challenging it but he can Clark once again tried to put the case for Europe said he couldn't change and he lost again so there are I think from this very long political journey quite a few lessons about leadership one of them is this and it's difficult to say because it's not necessarily admirable it is arguably more admirable for Ken Clark to stick to his principles and not yield about party leaders tend to be pragmatists they are willing to twist and turn to get the leadership and then keep their party together not least on Europe each of our actual Prime Minister's not the ones we never had but the actual ones twist and turn on Europe Theresa May is being attacked for her a poke opaque approach to Europe and brexit she's absolutely in a pattern of leaders and Prime Minister's Tony Blair who was a pro-european but in that single currency debate leading up to 97 and Beyond managed to both support and oppose the single currency his policy really wasn't very different to John Major's and yet he could slaughter John Major whilst himself keeping all options open Margaret Thatcher this supposedly strong hostile European Prime Minister signed every treaty and succumbed to joining the Exchange Rate Mechanism when her senior ministers told her to so even those prime ministers with landslides all leaders of opposition with big opinion poll leads twist and turn over this issue that has divided Britain and British politics and their parties for decades ken Clarke couldn't and it's one reason why he didn't become Prime Minister another is that sometimes it balance and a wonderfully enviable public profile in some respects can produce awareness amongst party members party members tend to respond most to those who are hardworking and a little dull who convey a total reliability so when Ken Clark would pop off to Ronnie Scott's after a late night at the Treasury and enjoy a few hours of smoking and jazz it was greatly appealing to a British electorate to view politicians largely as unattractive machines but party members don't necessarily think oh isn't that great they sometimes think why isn't he working around the clock in the Treasury and so on and so again one of his great strengths the zest for life and pleasure and imbalance perhaps again like Roy Jenkins becomes to some extent a disqualification for leadership but in a way like again Jenkins actually and not all our prime ministers we never had I think Clark has shown that it's not necessarily needed to get into number 10 to make an historic impact arguably as I say his record as a minister and those reforms that he introduced good or bad were of historic significance and had echoes in future administration's who followed them up but above all on Europe he continued to make a significant contribution he was one of the few Conservative MPs on the back benches who continued to put a robust case against brexit he does so with total self confidence because unlike so many MPs scared of defying the outcome of the referendum he is brutally candid again he says he doesn't approve of referendums it was an opinion poll on one day and that very candor frees him to speak wholly candidly that his view the brexit will be a disaster and one of his many speeches from the back benches on brexit got one of those rare things in the House of Commons a round of applause as he passionately put the case against leaving the European Union one more time he'll do it many more times to become because in a way both his addiction to politics and his passion for Europe means he is as committed a politician now on the back benches as he was when he was described as the big beast who might be required to take over from John Major as Prime Minister and when he fought all those leadership contests unlike some who disappear from politics he is like those from an earlier era the Dennis Healy's and others who stayed on when Labour were defeated in 79 and continue to have an impact he continues to do so now and there's no doubt at all his decision to fight the 2017 election when he was not in particularly good health was to do with this issue of Europe Europe prevented him from becoming leader of his party and therefore Prime Minister he became increasingly at odds with his party over the issue but Europe continued to give a Prime Minister we never had a role and a purpose and it may be as the brexit drama reaches new stages it will be another historic contribution to British politics [Music] you

Channel: steve richards

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Length: 29min 6sec (1746 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 09 2018