“It's not a game show” | Former Prime Minister Sir John Major on the current state of UK politics

0:00 Sir John Major was born on the 29th of March,

0:02 1943, to Gwen, a librarian and part-time dance teacher,

0:06 and Tom Major Ball, a former trapeze artist and music hall performer,

0:09 who later ran a successful garden ornaments business.

0:13 Young John underperformed in school in Brixton,

0:15 leaving with just three O levels,

0:16 but a chance meeting with his local MP led him into politics,

0:20 becoming a Conservative MP in Margaret Thatcher's 1979 landslide victory,

0:25 then rising through the ranks pretty quickly

0:27 to become first Foreign Secretary and then Chancellor.

0:30 And within 15 months of taking his first great office of state,

0:34 he reached the greatest,

0:35 replacing Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister in November 1990 at the age of 47.

0:41 He went on to win the 1992 election with the most votes ever recorded

0:46 for a British political party before losing

0:48 to Tony Blair's New Labour landslide in 1997.

0:51 And I'm delighted Sir John joins me now.

0:54 It's great to see you.

0:54 Thank you.

0:55 Um can you take us back to that church fete,

0:58 the the turning point it seems, the moment where you discovered politics?

1:03 Well, I discovered it before then.

1:05 I mean, I I read a lot of history and politics always fascinated me.

1:09 Um I remember the church fete very well.

1:12 Um the vicar was a delightful man, so was his daughter, we were friends.

1:17 And I was at the church fete,

1:19 and the local Labour Member of Parliament, Colonel Lipton,

1:22 Marcus Lipton, who'd been there since 1945,

1:26 uh attended every church fete in the constituency.

1:29 I don't think church fetes were legitimate unless Marcus was there.

1:32 And he talked to me, and we talked about politics,

1:35 and he must have realized that I naturally moved

1:37 to right of center rather than left of center.

1:40 But he saw I was interested.

1:42 And he kindly offered me some seats

1:44 in the gallery in order to watch Parliament in session.

1:47 And I did that, and I saw a small part of very boring part of the year,

1:51 really, but not for me, I was thrilled.

1:54 Uh it was the debate on the budget in the mid

1:57 1950s and I saw on the benches Ian Macleod.

2:01 Harold Macmillan was there, Rab Butler was there for a brief time.

2:04 And when I walked into that building, it reached out and it grabbed me.

2:09 And I thought when I left this is where I

2:11 wish to be and my mind never moved away from that.

2:15 It didn't focus you on your school work though.

2:18 You didn't you did clearly didn't think I need to knuckle

2:21 down if I want to get into the House of Commons.

2:23 In fact, I was I was looking you're one of didn't do all that well at school.

2:26 You're one of only eight prime ministers ever not to go to university.

2:30 Grammar school boy, you know, not privately educated.

2:33 Do Did you think that I mean now we'd call that a great back story,

2:36 but do you do you do you feel like

2:37 that that held you back in your pursuit of getting to politics?

2:40 Of course it did.

2:40 Absolutely.

2:41 And it was very stupid.

2:44 The background to that is not straightforward.

2:47 My father was 65 when I was born.

2:51 When I was 10, 11, went to Rutlish having passed the 11 plus, he was very sick.

2:59 And he was also nearly blind with cataracts.

3:02 And he had lost all our money.

3:05 We didn't have much, but what we had he had lost in a business venture.

3:09 And so we moved from a bungalow in Worcester Park to two

3:12 rooms four stories up in an old Victorian house in Brixton.

3:18 That is where we lived.

3:20 Is it still there?

3:24 It is.

3:25 It is.

3:27 It's still there.

3:28 It's still there.

3:30 It's hardly changed.

3:33 So we lived in just the two rooms.

3:35 There was nowhere there to study.

3:37 And to say they insisted that I stayed at Rutlish which was at Wimbledon.

3:42 So I had to travel back and forth from Brixton to Wimbledon every day.

3:47 And I was pretty rebellious at school.

3:49 I didn't like it.

3:51 I wasn't comfortable there.

3:52 I felt alienated by life.

3:54 It was extremely stupid and so I just didn't work.

3:58 Except for the things that interested me, which were mainly history and English.

4:02 And uh result of that was a lamentable a lamentable record at a school

4:10 and the need to get up at 5:00 after I left school at 16.

4:14 I was up at 5:00 each morning studying,

4:16 taking more O levels and a banking degree and other matters.

4:21 These days the the House of Commons is very

4:23 different to the House of Commons that you entered.

4:25 You know, there are fewer trade unionists in the Labour Party,

4:28 business people in the Conservative Party and so on.

4:31 A lot has changed.

4:32 Do you think that's been changed for the better?

4:33 No, I don't.

4:34 Um I certainly don't.

4:36 I mean, if you take both parties if you look

4:39 at the Labour Party and I have no animosity against the Labour Party.

4:42 I grew up in the Labour area.

4:44 I didn't agree with their policies,

4:45 but I saw decent men trying to do a decent job on Lambeth Council.

4:49 Um but I looked at the Labour Party when I got in the House

4:52 of Commons and there were lots of people if I mean ordinary everyday people,

4:56 I mean people without money,

4:58 without privilege uh working-class people who really knew their constituents.

5:03 They may not have got degrees in English, but my goodness,

5:05 they knew how their constituents lived and they cared about

5:08 that and they represented that in the House of Commons.

5:12 That doesn't happen in the Labour Party now.

5:13 They're uh much younger much better educated and I, in my judgment,

5:19 much less close to their constituents than their predecessors were.

5:23 And you can see on the Conservative side, where are the businessmen?

5:26 Where are the soldiers?

5:27 Where are the people who would have been a staple

5:29 part of the party in the 1950s, '60s, and '70s?

5:33 They're very sparse now on the Conservative benches.

5:36 There's been a change in nature.

5:39 And I think that's partly because of the way

5:41 in which politics is disregarded by so many people these days.

5:45 Many of the people who would be a very happy

5:49 addition to Parliament simply will not contemplate going into politics.

5:53 I hear that theme again and again and again.

5:56 And there are many reasons for it,

5:57 which we both know and I think the whole world knows.

6:00 But it's a loss to Parliament in my view.

6:03 Would the the John Major of of when you first went into politics,

6:09 uh get from your background and from your experience,

6:11 would you consider going into politics Yeah, I would.

6:13 I couldn't not do so.

6:14 I mean, I'm out of politics now and I'm I have

6:18 no regrets about leaving politics when I was in my early 50s.

6:22 No regrets whatsoever.

6:25 But there are moments when I see things happening

6:28 and I and I wish I was still there because I

6:30 would have a voice to point out things that I

6:33 had seen being done before and I know they went wrong.

6:37 And experience and a long memory

6:39 and historic memory in Parliament is very useful.

6:42 It can stop many mistakes being made.

6:45 And so there are moments when I wish I was back in politics,

6:47 but they are fleeting moments and they're entirely overridden by the fact

6:52 I couldn't take the divorce where I still in politics.

6:55 No Norma would would have future have something to say.

6:58 And so would my children.

7:00 Um let's talk about this.

7:01 You become a you become an MP and and most people when they become an MP,

7:04 even if they only say it to themselves at night,

7:05 probably privately harbor the idea that one day they

7:08 might be called upon uh to become Prime Minister.

7:11 Um but it it happens to you in 1990.

7:14 The Conservatives have been trailing in the polls for months.

7:16 Geoffrey Howe's devastating speech to to Margaret Thatcher.

7:20 That is why I have resigned.

7:22 In doing so, I've done what I believe to be right for my party and my country.

7:28 The time has come for others to consider their own response to the tragic

7:32 conflict of loyalties with which I have myself wrestled for perhaps too long.

7:37 Leads to Michael Heseltine's challenge.

7:39 Um you though, Sir John, you you miss much of the drama because

7:43 for some time you'd be nursing a painful wisdom tooth.

7:47 And you were under the dentist's anesthetic

7:49 while every everybody else was was plotting.

7:52 And yet you wake up, you're coming around from the anesthetic,

7:56 and the conversation almost immediately turns with uh Norman and your daughter

8:00 Elizabeth to the prospect of you possibly throwing your hat in the ring.

8:02 Was it Was it the drugs?

8:05 Well, you may say so, others may wish so.

8:07 Um no, it wasn't.

8:09 I mean, the the tooth has become a subject of myth over many years.

8:14 With people saying he didn't have a a problem at all,

8:16 he was just getting out of the way and and and and plotting.

8:20 Uh which is entirely absurd.

8:21 If anyone would care to go to the hospital in Essex

8:24 where we had the wisdom tooth out under full anesthetic.

8:27 It was a It was an abscess under wisdom

8:29 tooth that I'd been nursing for a couple of months.

8:32 I had a hospital appointment.

8:34 I wasn't going to cancel it.

8:35 I'd suffered from that enough.

8:36 And I didn't anticipate, frankly,

8:38 the degree of drama with Michael's uh Michael's challenge to to to Margaret.

8:44 But when Margaret decided she wasn't going to stand,

8:48 um I was approached by a lot of people to see whether I would stand.

8:53 I hadn't been contemplating it.

8:54 I can honestly say that.

8:56 My daughter was coming to A levels, my son to O levels.

8:59 Um I just got the job I really wanted in politics, which was Chancellor.

9:03 I was honestly, I can say that hand on heart,

9:06 not contemplating being Prime Minister.

9:09 But I was approached by a number of people.

9:11 I then learned that some people had been canvassing on my behalf.

9:15 And I was then told my by uh parliamentary private secretary,

9:20 I said to him, "Look, I don't know how many votes.

9:23 I don't want to humiliate myself by getting a few votes." And he said,

9:28 and he was a very good listener,

9:30 one of those rare politicians who listens rather than talks, and he said,

9:33 "Well, I think I can guarantee you 150 votes if you stand.

9:39 Dare you say no to that?

9:42 And I couldn't, really.

9:44 I remember the old Ian Macleod maxim.

9:46 It was Macleod, as much as any individual politician, who took me into politics.

9:50 He was a magnificent orator.

9:52 Not just in how he spoke, but what he said.

9:56 Uh and he once said, "If the ball comes out of the ruck, you grab it.

9:59 It may never come out again." And that was pretty much how I felt.

10:03 I was confident that I wasn't going to be humiliated,

10:05 so I decided I would stand.

10:08 But you write your memoirs that for large parts of that period,

10:10 actually right up until the almost the moment you you won,

10:13 you were you were stuffed with painkillers.

10:15 You were Yeah.

10:17 I was It's an extraordinary moment, though,

10:18 that what you were dealing with this pain in your mouth,

10:20 but each day is getting close to becoming Prime Minister.

10:24 Yes.

10:24 I mean, by the time that I mean, the campaign only lasted a week.

10:29 Mhm.

10:29 And it was the best-natured campaign, I think,

10:31 I've seen in all my years in politics

10:32 between Michael Heseltine Douglas Hurd, and myself.

10:36 We all knew one another extremely well.

10:38 I was particularly close to Douglas Hurd.

10:40 I didn't know Michael quite so well.

10:43 And it only lasted a week.

10:45 Mhm.

10:45 And as it as the campaign began,

10:48 the painkillers were winning over the pain quite comfortably.

10:51 Um so, we sailed through the the week's campaigning.

10:56 And it wasn't a difficult week campaigning because we

10:58 weren't in the business of slagging off one another.

11:01 We had worked together in the past.

11:03 We would work together in the future.

11:05 Whatever had happened, the three of us would have been together in the cabinet.

11:08 And so, it was a very good-natured campaign, and it went quickly.

11:11 It's given me enormous encouragement to know

11:13 that so many people in the parliamentary

11:15 party have prepared to entrust me with the leadership of the Conservative Party.

11:18 And I will endeavor to discharge

11:20 those responsibilities to the best of my ability.

11:23 And Michael Heseltine, of course,

11:24 then concluded that he who wills the knife doesn't wear the the crown.

11:29 If you're the person who who leaps first,

11:31 then you end up not getting the top job.

11:33 Do you do you think he's right about that that there are lessons for today?

11:39 Well, I'm not entirely sure about that.

11:42 Um Lloyd George might argue to the contrary.

11:45 And so and so might others.

11:46 But I I think it can be a disadvantage.

11:48 It depends on the nature of the relationship between the departing

11:52 Prime Minister and the wielder of the knife, I think.

11:55 Tell me about that moment that you become Prime Minister.

11:56 You go to the palace.

11:57 You You obviously been to number 10 before.

12:00 But it's very different going as a as a minister

12:02 than it is as as Prime Minister.

12:04 What's going through your mind during that?

12:06 In the drive to the palace?

12:09 Yes.

12:08 Well, several things really.

12:09 Firstly, I wonder how this ceremony goes.

12:13 Does kissing hands mean literally?

12:15 It doesn't.

12:16 It means figuratively.

12:18 Uh and what exactly are we going to talk about?

12:20 So, I was thinking about the Queen and how how that would work out.

12:24 Uh a different compartment of my mind was thinking about what

12:27 I'm going to say when I get back to the doorstep.

12:30 And it was that that was certainly occupying my mind.

12:34 And two other things were occupying my mind.

12:38 New Prime Minister within 2 years of the election,

12:41 we're going to have to have some cabinet changes.

12:44 And that is going to be awkward.

12:46 I had only been in the cabinet 3 years.

12:48 I was younger than most of the cabinet.

12:50 I'd been there less time than most of the cabinet.

12:52 And I was going to have to say

12:54 to very senior people who had been there much longer

12:57 than me that it was time to go and to bring in some new blood into the cabinet.

13:01 And nobody likes destroying someone's career.

13:05 Only sadists like that.

13:07 And so I my mind was occupied also with that.

13:10 And then beyond that, I was very conscious of the problems we faced.

13:15 You touched on some of them.

13:17 But the party was deeply split on the European Union.

13:20 Deeply and I felt as though I was

13:22 standing on either side of a wide widening chasm.

13:26 The poll tax was still around and had to be destroyed.

13:30 Michael Heseltine had to come back into the cabinet.

13:33 Now, those last two points was bound

13:37 were bound inevitably going to upset Margaret Thatcher.

13:41 That her poll tax I was going to have to abolish it.

13:45 And her assassin, as she saw Michael,

13:47 was going to have to come into the cabinet.

13:50 So, one could see immediately there were going to be problems that lay ahead.

13:54 And it was a combination of those things.

13:56 Only a short ride from Downing Street to Buckingham Palace.

13:59 But I remember very plainly,

14:00 almost as if different components of the mind were thinking of them.

14:04 I hope in the next few years that we will carry on with much

14:07 of the work that has been done in the last few years.

14:10 In particular, I want to see us build a country that is at ease with itself.

14:15 A country that is confident.

14:17 And a country that is prepared and willing to make the changes

14:20 necessary to provide a better quality of life for all our citizens.

14:25 I don't promise you that it will be easy.

14:28 And I don't promise you that it will be quick.

14:31 But I believe it is an immensely worthwhile job to do.

14:34 Because it will be neither easy nor quick.

14:37 If you will forgive me,

14:38 I will go into number 10 straight away and make a start right now.

14:42 Thank you very much indeed.

14:43 I mean, it's often said that being Prime Minister is a lonely

14:45 job and because so few people have been there and done it.

14:48 Um when you were there, still our former Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher,

14:53 Jim Callaghan, Wilson, Heath, Douglas-Home.

14:55 Were you able to sort of reach out and clearly the relationship

14:58 with with Margaret was difficult because

15:00 of the circumstances of you becoming Prime Minister.

15:01 Were you Were you Is there a gang of former

15:03 Prime Ministers that you you would all talk to each other?

15:05 I had no I mean, I had no difficulty with the other Prime Ministers at all.

15:10 Um the one who from time to time was most helpful was Jim Callaghan.

15:15 Who had a similar background to me.

15:17 And he understood the difficulties.

15:18 He understood the restraints in uh 1990 society.

15:23 And from time to time he was very helpful.

15:26 Harold Wilson by then was clearly ill.

15:28 And when I talked to him,

15:30 we we we met in the corridors and we discussed Huddersfield Town Football Club,

15:34 of which Harold was a tremendous uh uh supporter.

15:38 So, I I had no difficulties there.

15:40 And when I met Margaret, there was never any difficulty.

15:44 Um I The first time I met her was

15:47 at a by-election in 1978 in Berwick-upon-Tweed, which we lost.

15:52 And I was very impressed because it was

15:54 thought we were going to win the by-election.

15:57 And she had been there for a morning.

16:00 And she came in and talked to me at uh just after lunch.

16:04 And she she knew we were going to lose it.

16:07 Her sensitive political antennae had grasped the fact that it wasn't right.

16:11 And we I was hugely impressed by that.

16:14 And I had a very good relationship with her.

16:16 We had a furious fight when I was a young whip.

16:18 We disagreed severely about something.

16:21 And everyone thought my career was over.

16:23 And the next day she came and sat next to the bench and said,

16:27 "We'd better regroup and discuss these matters again." And 3

16:30 weeks later she gave me a job in government.

16:34 And I remember her saying to me when she gave it to me,

16:36 "It's the job I started with.

16:38 If you learn about social security,

16:40 you'll be better equipped than most of the parliamentary party for the future."

16:46 You mentioned the the you when you become prime minister

16:48 you knew there was a general election certainly within 2 years.

16:51 In that election in 1992,

16:54 uh there was an expectation that Labour were going to win it under Neil Neil

16:57 It wasn't an expectation.

16:58 It was almost written into the stars.

17:01 This is the party that's going to win the election and win for our country.

17:07 So, what what for you there's been endless you know, was it the Sheffield rally?

17:11 Was it the soapbox?

17:12 What What for you is what what what what it for you?

17:16 Well, I never quite agreed with the way the opinion

17:19 polls were going all the way through the campaign.

17:22 Um, and it may simply have been my naivety.

17:25 But everywhere I went, I got a very large and warm welcome everywhere.

17:31 There was no hostility, and I was surprised about that.

17:33 We had been in power for 11 years.

17:37 And people were plainly tired of the problems over the poll tax and and Europe.

17:42 And yet there was an immensely warm reception everywhere I went.

17:46 So, I had this blind faith that having come from where I did to where I was,

17:51 it wasn't going to end that quickly.

17:53 And I saw I saw throughout the campaign that we would win.

17:57 Um, and we had a very large lead in votes, you may recall.

18:02 It was only a slender lead of 21 in seats, but we had a 7% lead in votes.

18:07 We should have had a majority of 70 or so.

18:10 If if the votes had been equally distributed, but of course they weren't.

18:13 In fact, it's the it's the record for any party at a general election.

18:17 Still is.

18:18 And do you think in the the way

18:19 our politics is going with more and more parties?

18:22 Do you think that Do you think any Do you think that record will ever be broken?

18:25 Well, ever is a long time.

18:26 Um, but um, I don't think it's going to be broken in the near future.

18:31 Because there are going to be a greater disbursement of votes,

18:33 which raise a whole series of other questions.

18:36 Now, I know you you soon after that 1992 election,

18:39 you discussed with this Chris Patten um,

18:41 this idea of you you having stretched the elastic,

18:44 having defied expectations and what.

18:46 And so you you then spend the next five

18:48 years assuming that you you you wouldn't win in 1997.

18:53 And it gives you a different mindset,

18:54 and I wondered whether it would be better for governments

18:58 if they behaved like they would they weren't going to win,

19:01 and and did what they thought was right by the country

19:03 rather than sort of chasing percentage points in the polls.

19:07 Well, there was a bit of that.

19:08 I mean, it's it sounds uh it sounds

19:11 rather gallant to say proceeded entirely on that basis.

19:14 Of course, of course we wanted to win the election.

19:16 Um but but we managed to find a way of losing it quite comprehensively.

19:20 Um and we had a lot of assistance from my colleagues in doing so.

19:26 A new dawn has broken has it not?

19:30 We only had a tiny majority.

19:32 And for European there was a changing of the guard at 1992.

19:36 The the elderly members who'd been in the war or soon

19:40 after and in the services they were very pro-European in the Conservative

19:45 Party because they were pro-European and wished us to be part

19:50 of Europe because they never wanted to see a European war again.

19:53 A lot of them retired in 1992 and were replaced by much younger

19:58 and and uh more recently baked conservatives

20:02 who had a much more Eurosceptic view.

20:05 So the huge majority for Europe in the Conservative

20:07 Party that existed in 1991 had gone in 1992.

20:13 And we faced a completely different parliamentary party.

20:17 So although we had a majority of 21 nominally on European matters we barely had

20:23 a majority of at all and very soon

20:26 with by-elections that bare majority was whittled away.

20:29 If there's one little message I would seek to convey

20:32 to the party at the government table is it's become

20:35 abundantly clear over the past few months that the general

20:38 public are fed up to the with the European Union.

20:41 Was it then in '92 that essentially the the seeds of Brexit were sown?

20:45 In that shift, that generational shift in the Conservative

20:48 Well they were there before.

20:49 I mean going right back to Enoch Powell and areas of that.

20:53 There were people who were let me say unenthusiastic

20:57 would be a kind way of putting it about Europe.

21:00 But it was in the 1990s when the numbers began to grow.

21:04 And they began to grow because of opposition to the Maastricht Treaty.

21:08 And that was very odd.

21:10 And you may say, "Why is it odd?" Uh

21:12 because the Maastricht Treaty did all sorts of extraordinary things.

21:15 But, every one of those things was

21:17 actually preordained in the 1986 Single European Act.

21:23 That we were we had signed up to a whole

21:26 range of things that were in the Maastricht Treaty.

21:29 That the very people who had signed up

21:31 to that treaty now opposed and opposed virulently.

21:35 And the new members followed them.

21:37 And they became more and more of a thorn in the side for you.

21:40 In 1993, you were caught on camera

21:41 calling some of your Euroskeptic cabinet ministers bastards.

21:46 Do you have any regrets about that?

21:47 I Well, uh I remember that very well.

21:51 It was It was a BBC feed that was left

21:53 on when I was speaking privately to a single person.

21:56 And a feed crept under the door and they they chose to use it.

21:59 Um of course, I shouldn't have said that.

22:01 My only excuse is that it was true.

22:05 And then as the pressure built over time and you faced more criticism, in 1995,

22:09 you you pushed what many thought was the nuclear button

22:11 and you you challenged your opponents to put up or shut up.

22:15 And in fact, one of our listeners, uh Mike,

22:17 got in touch and said, "My question to John Major would be,

22:20 uh what would you do if you were in Keir Starmer's shoes,

22:23 assuming local elections are about as well?

22:25 Would you advise doing what you did, put up or shut up,

22:27 or is it a case of different party, different circumstances, different times?"

22:31 the circumstances are very different and I think the times are and I

22:34 think enough has been said by enough people about that particular issue.

22:38 I don't really wish to to add to it.

22:41 I have this afternoon tendered my resignation as leader

22:45 of the Conservative Party to Sir Marcus Fox, the chairman of the 1922 Committee,

22:51 and requested him to set the machinery

22:53 in motion for the election of a successor.

22:57 I have confirmed to Sir Marcus that I shall be a candidate in that election.

23:03 Did you think you would win that when you

23:04 when you did that back in back in the 90s?

23:08 sure.

23:09 Yeah.

23:08 No, no, I I I I was prepared for the fact that I might have to resign.

23:13 I didn't think I was going to be defeated in the ballot.

23:17 But I had put into sealed envelope the number of votes I had

23:20 to have in order to for me in my mind to credibly stay.

23:25 And we exceeded that number by three votes.

23:28 So, it was very close.

23:30 close.

23:30 It was close.

23:31 Four votes less and I would have resigned.

23:34 Now, when you weren't dealing with your own MPs,

23:35 you were dealing with Tony Blair in the latter stages across the dispatch box.

23:39 And Prime Minister's Questions is is a part of politics that most people,

23:43 you know, that's their main consumption probably

23:45 when they see it on on the news.

23:47 And he was pretty remorseless to you during PMQs.

23:51 I lead my party, he follows his.

23:55 You're calling it weak weak weak.

23:57 I lead my party, he follows his.

23:59 Did you Did you mean Is there any

24:01 part of you that could enjoy Prime Minister's Questions?

24:04 It was a very good line.

24:05 I don't know who wrote it for Tony, but it was extremely good.

24:08 Um and if I were in his position, I might have done exactly the same thing.

24:12 Because I was in a position, whatever I did,

24:15 I was going to have half the party disagreeing with it.

24:17 And I was trying to bring the party together.

24:20 My fear, from the moment I became Prime Minister,

24:23 was that the European issue could break the Conservative

24:25 Party apart as free trade had done in the past.

24:29 And that was very inhibiting as to what you could do.

24:34 And that provided Tony with that opening.

24:38 You also faced a lot of hostility from the from the media at during that period.

24:42 Surely not.

24:45 Um it said and I've I've having interviewed

24:47 people who worked with you at the time,

24:48 there was this feeling amongst some that you

24:50 spent you focused too much on the media.

24:52 You read the papers too closely.

24:54 The benefit of hindsight now, do you think they're right?

24:56 Possibly.

24:57 But it's it's difficult to know what you're facing

24:59 unless you hear about it and read about it.

25:02 So, it's very easy to say, I mean,

25:03 I seem to recall that was it Franklin Roosevelt who read 18 newspapers a day?

25:09 Something of that sort.

25:10 So, yes, I suppose you could say I wasted

25:13 too much time reading things that were unnecessarily read,

25:15 but you needed to be prepared.

25:18 If if you're suddenly asked a question

25:20 and you don't know why the question has come,

25:23 you could be in a very difficult situation.

25:25 I mean, senior politicians face that today with social media.

25:30 They may be going around the country, they'll be stopped,

25:32 they'll be asked a question about an event

25:33 that has happened the other side of the world, and they don't know of the event.

25:37 So, and sometimes they are foolish enough to commit

25:40 themselves and get themselves in a great deal of difficulty.

25:42 I I I was thinking about this and wondering

25:44 about the way that everything's been sped up, rolling news, then social media.

25:49 Um thinking of a dramatic event like Black Wednesday,

25:52 do you think you could have survived Black Wednesday in a world of social

25:55 media with the the sort of the frenzy that people whip themselves up into?

25:58 could hardly have been worse if if social media had been there.

26:03 Yeah.

26:03 I mean, there's a great deal behind many of the myths in it still survive.

26:08 Uh but uh it was an extremely difficult, it lingered a long time.

26:12 And it marked the biggest danger of Black Wednesday.

26:15 Well, there were two things about Black Wednesday really.

26:17 Firstly, when we were forced out of the exchange rate mechanism,

26:21 after a market turmoil that began in North Europe, not with us.

26:27 And injudicious remarks by the governor

26:29 of the Bundesbank led them to concentrate on sterling,

26:32 which was very very unhelpful indeed.

26:35 But um when we were forced out of the exchange rate mechanism,

26:41 I was already in discussion with the policy unit about how we could leave it,

26:45 because its purpose had been to bring down inflation, and it had done that.

26:49 Many people hated the ERM because they thought

26:52 it was a stepping stone to the Euro,

26:54 that we were going to join the single currency.

26:56 That was never going to happen while I was there.

26:58 I wasn't going to join the single currency.

27:00 We weren't ready for it.

27:02 Parliament wouldn't have accepted it, and I didn't like it anyway.

27:05 So, there were good reasons why we weren't going to happen.

27:08 But, we went into the exchange rate mechanism because we had failed to get

27:11 inflation down with every other policy

27:13 we and our predecessors in Margaret's time,

27:16 in Ted's time, in Jim Callaghan's time, in Harold Wilson's time.

27:20 Inflation had come back again and again and again and destroyed parties.

27:24 And I was determined that we would stick

27:26 it with the ERM until we had beaten inflation.

27:30 And we did.

27:31 And we enjoyed the benefit of that right up to about 2010.

27:36 So, the incoming Labour government enjoyed it had a low inflationary

27:39 position and inherited a very good economy, I may say, in 1997.

27:44 But, because we had fallen out of the ERM,

27:48 that masked the changes in the economy, the changes in interest rates,

27:53 and we got none of the credit

27:55 a government would normally have got for that simply

27:58 because we were thought to have been

27:59 incompetent because we were forced out of the

28:01 it was a political it was a political impact rather than an

28:03 It was a political catastrophe, but it wasn't an economic catastrophe.

28:08 And the economy, we thought could not then sustain leaving ERM.

28:14 The difficulty was how to get out with out

28:17 in the market thinking you were weakening anti-inflationary policy.

28:20 That was the difficulty that we didn't solve.

28:22 Uh so, when we were thrown out, it was catastrophic politically, Mhm.

28:27 But, it had done its job.

28:30 Mhm.

28:30 I I I I felt so strongly about inflation.

28:33 And I will put it in this personal way because it was how I felt.

28:38 Because when we were living in those two rooms,

28:41 there was barely a week when the money did not run out before the week.

28:46 And I my mother go downstairs and borrow money

28:50 to see us through the week and then desperately try

28:53 and find some way to pay it back and then

28:55 repeat the exercise week after week after week after week.

28:58 I knew what that was like.

29:00 And I knew that that was what inflation did not just to my family,

29:04 but with families all over the country.

29:07 And I hated inflation with a passion.

29:09 And I would rather have been forced out of government and out

29:12 of politics than have given up

29:14 on the anti-inflationary uh on the anti-inflationary program.

29:18 And that was the ERM.

29:20 All my adult life, I've seen British governments driven off

29:24 their virtuous pursuit of low inflation

29:27 by market problems or political pressures.

29:30 I was under no illusions when I took Britain into the exchange rate mechanism.

29:35 I said at the time that membership was no soft option.

29:39 The soft option, the devaluer's option, the inflationary option, in my judgment,

29:44 that would be a betrayal of our future at this moment.

29:47 And I tell you categorically, that is not the government's policy.

29:51 And the other point I would just make about it with all my critics,

29:54 I remember even the Daily Telegraph

29:57 with banner headlines saying at last we're going

30:00 to have some economic discipline on the day I went in to the ERM.

30:04 It's amazing how successes have many fathers and and and failures are orphans.

30:11 Um can I ask you as well like you said a lot of criticism for the papers.

30:15 So can I ask you about Spitting Image?

30:17 Did you watch Spitting Image?

30:19 I mean we had various questions sent in of people asking

30:21 about the you being portrayed as the gray man of politics.

30:24 You know, despite having the background

30:26 you came from, winning a general election,

30:28 uh you know, beating older Politics is a rough old trade.

30:32 Um that was originally a joke across the tea room by a friend

30:38 of mine when my hair started to go gray when I was about 48.

30:43 And that's where it that's where it came from and it

30:46 was a very useful way to portray something quite different.

30:49 And it was used mostly because politics is sometimes a rather fierce trade,

30:55 but you know that when you go into it.

30:57 There's no point in crying over it.

30:58 Did you watch it?

30:59 At the time?

31:00 Um I stopped watching it um when I saw the portrayals

31:04 of Norman Tebbit and Margaret Thatcher which I thought were downright crude.

31:10 So, I did watch it occasionally,

31:11 but when I began to feature in it in an indelible way, I thought

31:16 You thought that's when you

31:17 people who told me I would not to read the newspapers um now say,

31:21 "Why didn't you watch Spitting Image?"

31:23 Did you um Do you watch any of sort of political TV shows?

31:27 The Thick of It, Yes Prime Minister, or is it all a bit too much like

31:31 one I watched was Yes Prime Minister which I thought was pure genius.

31:34 And it did It's all got so close to a parody of reality.

31:39 I I didn't think I didn't think The Thick of It quite quite achieved that.

31:43 I I didn't watch that very much.

31:45 Can I ask you about the the job of being Prime Minister and how

31:49 you approached it and the the sense

31:54 that since you've been there, we've had what?

31:56 Eight since?

31:58 Seven or eight since.

31:59 Is it getting harder, do you think?

32:06 In some ways, yes.

32:08 Um it's certainly getting harder because

32:10 of the external pressure of social media.

32:13 That is undoubtedly getting harder.

32:16 On the other hand, the newspapers matter less than they did politically.

32:20 They're not as powerful as they were in the uh '70s, '80s, and '90s.

32:26 Um the problems are wider today.

32:30 And there seems to be a shorter time frame in which

32:32 people feel they can deal with problems and push them aside.

32:36 Most of the big problems we have

32:38 in this country at the moment are long-term problems.

32:42 What are we going to have a How are we going to cope with an ever-increasing

32:46 number of elderly people who will live longer

32:48 and need more medicine and more expensive medicine?

32:51 How are we going to prepare for that?

32:53 How are we going to prepare for people

32:55 having their own pensions when the government keeps producing

32:58 measures that will reduce the private pensions that people

33:00 actually earn and save for in their own lifetime?

33:03 They're forcing more people into state assistance when

33:06 they retire by the policies they're following now.

33:08 That is not only wrong, it is plain stupid.

33:12 And then there are other things like um climate change.

33:15 Um some people deny climate change.

33:17 I don't know what planet they're living on, but when

33:19 they say I don't believe in climate change, it's a cop-out.

33:23 It's a cop-out so they needn't put the money towards the policy

33:26 and they can spend it on something else that's more politically uh uh popular.

33:30 But I only have to look at my own garden.

33:32 The daffodils come up 6 weeks earlier.

33:35 The climate is different.

33:37 The ice caps They're not in my garden, by the way.

33:39 But the ice caps are melting and changing the the positions inside the oceans.

33:44 There are There are more hurricanes.

33:47 There are much more extreme weather events.

33:50 The climate is changing.

33:52 And those people who say, "Well, let's push it back a bit.

33:55 Let's not do anything.

33:56 Let's just wait and we'll do it a little small slowly

33:59 so we can spend a little money on something else." Well,

34:03 all they are doing are saying to my children

34:05 and your children and their grandchildren is, "Tough luck, chaps.

34:09 We're not only leaving you a difficult economy with too

34:12 many old people that you can't afford to care for.

34:14 We're going to leave you with climate change that we should have

34:16 put right for you and didn't." The first role of any government,

34:22 in my view, is to leave something better

34:25 for the next generation than your generation inherited.

34:29 And this is not done now.

34:32 The The youngsters of today are inheriting a more difficult

34:36 world and a less favorable world for them than my generation.

34:40 And their successors may be in exactly the same position

34:43 unless now we begin to take seriously those very long-term problems.

34:48 I'm sorry that's a long and tedious answer,

34:50 but I feel very strongly that it it demeans politics.

34:54 The role of You're not there as a politician.

34:56 It's not a game show.

34:57 You're You're not there just to provide fodder

35:00 for the media and provoke project your own career.

35:04 You're there to deal with problems that the ordinary people elect you to do.

35:08 We are a representative uh democracy.

35:12 We send representatives to Parliament to make sure that our lives are better.

35:19 And if you ignore and deny those issues,

35:22 our lives will not get better and those parliaments will have failed.

35:28 I mean, some of those issues you talk about changes

35:29 to pensions that were are unfolding under the Labour government,

35:32 but some of the things climate change and and net zero,

35:35 they those ideas which are taking hold in the Conservative Party as well.

35:38 This is This is across I'm not I'm not making a point against anyone government.

35:43 It has been going on for quite a long time and Well,

35:46 let me put it to you in this one question.

35:49 What You know politics better than most people, I would guess.

35:53 When did you last hear a senior politician

35:55 a senior politician actually deliver a detailed lecture about

36:00 the problems we face and what we must do

36:03 to make those problems better over the next 30 years.

36:06 Can you remember such a speech?

36:09 Not off the top of my head.

36:10 No, neither can I.

36:11 So, what's what's Is that because be.

36:14 Is that because our politicians Don't you think Think of me a moment.

36:17 Don't you think the people out there would actually like

36:20 to hear someone standing up and saying we've got these things wrong.

36:25 We've We've really screwed up.

36:26 We've really got to take this particular policy more seriously.

36:29 We cannot We cannot cope with the population growth and the uh

36:38 uh uh growth in the length of years people live.

36:44 And the more expensive medical treatments.

36:46 We cannot cope with them unless we begin to take action on those things.

36:49 At this moment, we cannot delay on that.

36:52 So So, what is the problem?

36:53 Is it the quality of the politicians?

36:55 Is it the quality of MPs in Parliament who get restless too quickly?

37:00 Is it partly our fault, the electorate's fault,

37:03 that we are impatient and we want quick

37:04 quick and easy answers to big complicated problems?

37:07 we do.

37:08 Um and and that is because nobody is telling us we can't have that.

37:12 And instead of saying, "Well, these are the difficulties we've got to face,

37:17 and you can't have that." Nobody's doing that.

37:19 They are I mean, too many people listen to focus groups,

37:23 parody the focus groups in their policies,

37:27 which naturally means more expenditure.

37:30 Inevitably means more expenditure.

37:32 And that inevitably in the short term or the longer

37:34 term either means more debt or higher taxes.

37:40 Governments have lost the capacity, it seems, to say no.

37:44 And part of the job of politics is to say no.

37:48 I suppose that the the counter argument is that if you say no,

37:51 you lose elections and you're not in a position of power anymore.

37:55 do.

37:55 So, is it let me pause you on that.

37:57 I mean, I'm not entirely sure that's that's the case.

38:00 I I would guess there are millions of people out there who'd be

38:03 only too pleased to hear a politician stand up and set out absolutely clearly

38:08 and honestly and unmistakably the depth of the problems we face and the sort

38:14 of measures we are going to have to take in order to protect ourselves.

38:18 And they say, "You can't do that.

38:19 You'll lose votes." Really?

38:21 When you're setting out a policy that will

38:23 ease the lives of their children and their grandchildren?

38:26 Are we so self-centered that we can't take in that message?

38:30 I I don't believe it.

38:32 I wonder we've touched a bit on social media,

38:33 but the role of social media in changing

38:36 the way that people consume the news instead of watching

38:39 the 6:00 news or reading a newspaper which

38:41 might have a broad range of issues and voices,

38:44 if you're just watching people that you agree with, that reinforces

38:47 the idea that this person has all the answers.

38:49 I'm afraid that there's been a lot of that over a long time.

38:53 Where people um uh mix with other people who have the same views,

38:58 uh read newspapers that echo their views or indeed shape their views.

39:02 Um I'm afraid that this is happening in much bigger way in America, I must say.

39:06 But it is certainly happening here as well.

39:09 And it's very dangerous.

39:11 You can't debate and change the world unless you meet

39:15 the people with whom you disagree and try and persuade them.

39:20 If in fact you instead of that you avoid the people

39:22 you disagree and form your own clique with your own views,

39:27 then nothing is going to change in terms

39:31 of really addressing the problems that lie before us.

39:34 You've talked in the past about believing in a rough and ready decency.

39:40 Mhm.

39:39 Do you think we see enough enough of that in our politics today?

39:45 Well, sometimes you do.

39:48 Is it more rough than it is decent?

39:50 There are a lot of very decent people in politics.

39:53 Um I don't know the present parliament as well as I knew earlier parliaments.

39:57 I'm I'm not a member of the present parliament.

40:00 But I know a number of MPs from um Conservative Party,

40:05 Labour Party, um not so much the Liberal Democrats these days.

40:09 Um and there are lots of them who have very decent instincts.

40:13 And the curious thing is many of their instincts

40:17 as to what would like to achieve, are the same.

40:21 What they differ about is how to achieve it.

40:24 The economy is a practical example.

40:26 The Conservative Party would say we have

40:28 to deal with it with much more free enterprise, much less regulation.

40:32 And many people in the Labour Party would also want a much better economy,

40:35 but would go a completely different way.

40:37 We need a good deal more state direction.

40:39 Now, uh everyone can have their own view on that.

40:46 And the very nature of the House

40:49 of Commons with Her Majesty's Opposition being two

40:52 sword lengths apart from Her Majesty's Government actually

40:55 promotes the idea that opposition must oppose everything.

40:59 Well, I'm not sure that I agree with that.

41:02 I think opposition have a duty to point out shortcomings,

41:06 but I think when the objectives are the same,

41:09 I think it would be a better way to proceed if people acknowledged

41:15 similar objectives and began more practically

41:19 to suggest mutual ways of meeting those objectives.

41:23 The classic example I I would give you,

41:25 I do not think we will get a proper concordat on uh health,

41:31 probably the single most important issue to many people,

41:35 um until the main parties agree the broad parameters of it.

41:40 And that includes funding.

41:42 And I think that's something they ought to be looking at.

41:44 You can't have one party coming into government,

41:48 setting out a series of policies, making changes,

41:51 and the other party denouncing them, and because they denounced them,

41:54 coming in and feeling they have to change them.

41:57 That's poor politics.

42:02 And yet, when we look at what how politics has unfolded over the last few years,

42:05 promises don't get very long.

42:07 And whether it's their own MPs, the media,

42:12 Uh maybe if they met these long-term problems they would.

42:15 Mhm, interesting.

42:16 And in any event, the fate of individual politicians doesn't really

42:18 matter as much as the uh development of the right policy.

42:23 I mean, it isn't a good idea to keep changing prime ministers.

42:27 Um I think there's also a limit.

42:30 I mean uh if I give you a term of years it'll land out to get you into trouble,

42:35 but I think it it is an idea to have a limited number of years.

42:39 I think the Americans who have two terms of a president and then stop.

42:43 I think there's a sense of stability.

42:44 years at the moment before speculation.

42:46 I know.

42:47 I know.

42:47 I know, but that's this is a phase we're going through.

42:51 And um it's it's part partly a function

42:54 of the many many difficulties that we face at the moment.

42:57 So if Kier Starmer picked up the And the frustration that people don't believe

43:00 those problems show signs of being solved.

43:04 The the best the best aphrodisiac in politics is hope.

43:09 If people can see a change, there's a change in atmosphere.

43:13 It doesn't it have to be politics.

43:15 If we win the Ashes or the World Cup,

43:16 there's a total change in atmosphere in the country.

43:19 If you see interest rates going down rather than up,

43:21 there's a total change in people's capacity to invest

43:24 and their belief in what is going to happen in the future.

43:27 The moment the economy turns, politics will turn, too.

43:32 It sounds as if if Kier Kier Starmer picked up the phone to you,

43:34 I don't know if he ever does, it sounds to me like your advice to him

43:37 is the old Churchillian phrase, keep buggering on.

43:40 I'm not going to offer I've been I've been

43:43 in politics a long time and I've made many mistakes.

43:45 One mistake I'm not going to make is advising a Labour prime minister in public.

43:50 And no, I have not been asked

43:51 to advise a Labour prime minister in private, either.

43:54 Uh you you talked about uh Her Majesty's Opposition,

43:56 now it's His Majesty's Opposition.

43:57 When when you were there it was the the Queen.

43:59 Uh tell me about the the the obviously you

44:02 met her on the first day you became prime minister.

44:04 The the the weekly audience.

44:07 How you know, I've heard other Prime Ministers

44:09 talk about how it you know, you know,

44:10 it's the one meeting you go into where the other person doesn't want your job.

44:13 How important was it for you having that that that regular audience?

44:17 Um it was very important and I think I don't mean for me.

44:21 I think the Prime Minister meeting the monarch

44:24 weekly is very important for the monarch, too.

44:26 Uh I've no intention of telling you the sort of things we discussed.

44:30 Um I will tell you it wasn't all politics.

44:33 Uh but by any means.

44:35 And the only people Well,

44:37 the only others present at those meetings ever were the corgis.

44:41 If someone had if someone had barked at the corgis,

44:45 it would have it would have been quite a revelation.

44:50 Are you a dog fan?

44:51 A what?

44:51 Uh are you a fan of dogs?

44:53 Oh, yeah.

44:53 You got over the corgis?

44:54 Yeah.

44:54 Yeah, yeah, the the corgis were fine, yeah.

44:57 We we even have an office therapy dog.

45:00 You do?

45:00 No, no, it's not my dog.

45:01 It's my chief of staff's Oh, great.

45:03 What sort of dog is it?

45:04 Oh, I'm not going to tell you.

45:05 Oh, okay, fine.

45:06 I don't want the dog to become famous.

45:10 Um when you were Prime Minister, it was quite a turbulent time for the royals.

45:12 You you know, since we've since had

45:14 cabinet papers which have been released of you

45:16 when the Queen went through a annus horribilis and and that sort of thing.

45:19 Did you feel that the the royals were really under pressure at that that moment?

45:22 And did you feel like you you helped to turn things around?

45:26 Uh I've no intention of commenting on that uh except to say um

45:30 I did share an annus horribilis with the Queen at the same time.

45:32 Yes, you also did.

45:33 So so we we had plenty to to talk about.

45:38 1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure.

45:45 In the words of one of my more sympathetic

45:48 correspondents it has turned out to be an annus horribilis.

45:55 You you talked about how you had a small

45:56 majority after 1992 and obviously that made your life hard.

45:59 Is there a point Is there a sweet spot for size majority?

46:02 Is there a point where having a massive majority is also a problem.

46:04 Something between 40 and 50 is a sweet spot.

46:07 Yeah.

46:07 I mean, one of the problems the Labour Party have

46:09 got at the moment they've got such a big majority.

46:11 A large number of people who know in their hearts

46:13 they're a one-term member of Parliament for that particular constituency.

46:18 And unless they defy political gravity, they will lose at the next election.

46:24 And that will encourage many of them not to take difficult decisions,

46:27 but to cry out against difficult decisions so they can be seen

46:30 to defending their constituents against something

46:34 that may be necessary, but is unpopular.

46:36 And that makes any government's job much harder.

46:40 I just want to finally end on a a couple of your reflections.

46:45 Any regrets?

46:45 Your biggest regret from your time as Prime Minister?

46:48 Oh, have you an hour or two?

46:51 There were lots, yes.

46:52 I think the biggest regret I have No, I I won't say it's the biggest,

46:55 but a big regret I had when I par- when I negotiated the Maastricht Treaty,

47:02 it was hugely well received in Parliament.

47:05 And uh we didn't put the bill for the Maastricht Treaty

47:10 through Parliament before the '92 election because it had such support.

47:15 I mean, with five or 600 members of Parliament voting for it,

47:19 we didn't put it through.

47:20 We put through other measures that were more immediately relevant.

47:25 And so, we left the Maastricht Treaty till after the '92 election.

47:30 And as I explained earlier, after the '92 election,

47:32 the complexion of the Tory Party had changed remarkably.

47:35 Without which we would not have had all

47:37 the troubles we had with the Maastricht Treaty,

47:39 which had a great deal to do with the uh

47:44 uh the eternal damnation of the Conservative government at the time.

47:48 So, that that is a regret.

47:50 I could have got it through just

47:52 And that might have then changed things for for what followed afterwards.

47:55 Yes, they they they wouldn't have been a bill

47:57 that they could spend a whole year uh attacking.

48:01 And on the positive side, George is a listener got in touch and said,

48:04 "Does Sir John Fairly did not get enough credit for the national lottery?

48:07 Lottery funded elite sports and team GB success at the Olympics.

48:11 Please thank him for me." Well, I'm very pleased it's done so well.

48:16 Um, I'll tell you how I came about to do it.

48:19 Um, I was Chief Secretary at the Treasury in 1987 to 9.

48:26 And the Chief Secretary negotiated

48:28 public expenditure with every individual minister.

48:31 And so he had, although he was a junior member of the cabinet,

48:34 he had more power than most members because he could redirect money.

48:38 And I noticed in doing that that the things the public most cared about,

48:42 sport and the arts, got petty cash from the government.

48:47 And I could never see a circumstance in which you could take money away

48:50 from health or education or defense

48:53 or social security in order to enhance leisure.

48:58 Governments have never been big on leisure.

49:01 If you go back as far in history as you'd like.

49:03 And so I was looking for some external way of funding

49:06 something that the public really loved, sport and the arts.

49:10 And the answer was the lottery.

49:12 And since then it has now, I don't know if you know how much it has given,

49:15 apart from the prizes,

49:17 how much do you think it has delivered to the public in in good causes?

49:22 It must I mean it must be billions.

49:24 Have a rough guess.

49:26 3 billion.

49:27 50 billion.

49:28 50 billion.

49:28 Wow.

49:29 And that was 18 months ago.

49:30 So it would be 51 rising 52 now.

49:33 52 billion.

49:34 And you can go to almost every village in the country

49:36 and you'll find something badged with the with the national lottery money.

49:41 And if you see that badge you think I did that.

49:44 Well, it wasn't only me.

49:45 Lots and lots of other people were there.

49:46 Um, one one takes personal blame if one takes personal credit,

49:51 but neither of those things are fully justified.

49:53 You shouldn't entirely get the blame nor entirely receive the credit.

49:57 Um but I am very pleased that it went well.

49:59 A final thought then, going back to where we began, the young 13-year-old John,

50:03 not working that hard at school, difficulty at home,

50:06 you know, parents distracted by trying to make ends meet.

50:09 If if that young John now was to come across our conversation,

50:12 and they've got an interest in politics,

50:14 what would you What would you say to them?

50:16 Well, I would say to young people, we need you in politics.

50:19 If if if all the talent in this country

50:21 concentrates on how can I earn more money,

50:25 how can I avoid public service like the plague

50:27 because I don't like the idea of it, then we are in deep doodah.

50:31 We do need people to go into politics,

50:33 and we need our best people to go into politics.

50:36 And that may mean some changes in which

50:38 part in in the way in which Parliament works.

50:40 It will certainly require a change in attitude where public service,

50:45 whether it is elected public service in the House of Commons or appointed

50:49 public service in in in the civil service or any of the government bodies,

50:54 local government particularly.

50:56 We need that sort of that sort of career to be

50:59 attractive and to be socially attractive as well as financially attractive.

51:04 I'm not suggesting money is more important than the other.

51:06 We need both.

51:08 When you have respect for those, and I think

51:09 we're getting back into a much more healthy position.

51:12 And so, it's silly to argue and denigrate public service.

51:18 People simply shouldn't do it.

51:20 So, John Major, it's been fascinating talking to you.

51:22 Thank you for your time.

51:23 My pleasure.

51:23 Thank you.