Leading: Michael Heseltine

Rory and Alastair are launching a new podcast - 'Leading'! Every Monday, Alastair and Rory are going to speak to people who are leading in their field. Whether they be presidents, policy makers, sports stars or religious leaders - Leading is going to be hosting the biggest names from many different walks of life. Today's guest is former Deputy Prime Minister, Michael Heseltine. One of the biggest names in the last half-century of British politics, Lord Heseltine discusses everything from his crucial role in the rise and fall of Margaret Thatcher, to his current position in the House of Lords. Tune in to hear a preview from the pod... Things get a little heated with a few polite disagreements later on, so if you want to hear the full interview, just search ‘LEADING’ wherever you get your podcasts, and subscribe to hear new episodes every Monday - or simply click on one of the links below: Apple - apple.co/3CRLx2l Spotify - spoti.fi/3IQBwGn RSS feed - bit.ly/3XzOFrQ Thanks for listening, and see you over on the Leading feed. We’ll be back here on The Rest Is Politics this Wednesday for our regular podcast. If you have any problems, head over to our Twitter and Instagram pages to find the link to listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Rory Stewart?

  This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.

• 0:06Alastair Campbell?

  And I must thank NordVPN because on my Grand European Tour with Fiona, I was away from the Hawthorns for West Bromwich against Burnley, but I managed to watch it. There you go.

• 0:19Rory Stewart?

  I actually had a NordVPN thank you. I was in the new Starbucks here in Crete. And of course, the thing flashed up, saying this is an unsecured public network. And I was able to go to my VPN. It was a little reminder of something we often forget when we're in all those cafes and things, which is actually genuinely, people can do all kinds of weird cyber attacks and spying if you don't have a virtual private network when you're sitting in that Starbucks.

• 0:42Alastair Campbell?

  Well, I think, are you not really sort of proud of me that I managed to do this? Or should I say Fiona managed to do this?

• 0:49Rory Stewart?

  I'm incredibly proud of you. That's a tech transformation. So to get the best discount off your NordVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com/restispolitics. That's nordvpn.com/restispolitics. And the link is in the episode description.

• 1:43Alastair Campbell?

  Hi there. It's me, Alastair Campbell. Welcome to The Rest is Politics. Today, I want to introduce you to our exciting new podcast, Leading. Roy and I have decided to set up a dedicated interview feed and differentiate it from The Rest is Politics, the main podcast, because crucially, not all the interviews we're going to do will be with politicians. Every Monday, we're going to try and speak to people who are leading in their field. Or have led, or could lead, or might lead, or want to lead. Could be presidents, policymakers, sports stars, religious leaders. We're going to be hosting some of the best and biggest names from many, many different walks of life. And we were both thrilled with our first guest for leading, former Deputy Prime Minister, Michael Heseltine,

• 2:26Alastair Campbell?

  still looking and sounding pretty good at eighty-nine years of age. One of the biggest names in the history of British politics, Michael Heseltine discusses everything from his crucial role in the rise and fall of Margaret Thatcher, his current position in the House of Lords, and his current very interesting views on politics. So here is a quick preview from Leading with Michael Heseltine, out right now. To hear the rest, just search Leading wherever you get your podcasts. But for now, enjoy this sneak peek.

• 3:02Alastair Campbell?

  When Margaret Thatcher died, how did you feel? What was your assessment of her life and legacy? And her role in your life?

• 3:09Speaker 02

  We had, as colleagues, a very good relationship. I mean, that doesn't mean to say we liked each other or were friends. That's ridiculous. That's not the nature of the relationships of people in business, or universities, or hospitals, or politics. But you work alongside someone, with someone, and sometimes you work for somebody. And in my experience with Margaret, she knew what I believed, and it often coincided with what she believed. Indeed, in some curious ways, she tried to use me to change the process of government. There was a disastrous evening. Because if you look at the number of ministers who actually ran their departments and ran them the way Margaret wanted,

• 3:54Speaker 02

  I come out top of the queue. I mean, I closed down more Krangos even than Keith Joseph. I beat him by one. I ran down my department by three percent per annum, which was way in ahead of what everyone else was doing. And Margaret looked at the techniques I was using and thought they were so impressive that she invited me to give her, what frankly was a To the cabinet, it was a disaster. You can imagine, I mean, because it meant really detailed graft and exploration of things like organograms and spreadsheets and, you know, and you can imagine Quinton

• 4:35Speaker 02

  Hailsham and Willie Whitehall sitting there being told by this extraordinary phenomenon from the Welsh Valleys, well, not the Valleys, but from Swansea, and there was a small businessman and all this telling us, you know, the great figures of historic.

• 4:50Rory Stewart?

  What would Willie Whitehall have been like as Prime Minister? People thought that he had a good chance against Mrs Thatcher.

• 4:55Speaker 02

  I supported him against Margaret.

• 4:57Rory Stewart?

  What would he have been like as a Prime Minister?

• 4:59Speaker 02

  Well, look, you will never know because it's what you will never know is what people will be like under pressure. But I think he'd have been a good Prime Minister. On the big, the descending issue of the trade union power, which was actually where 1979 pushed us, there was complete unity in the cabinet. Indeed, the extraordinary thing about Margaret's cabinet is it was Ted's cabinet given a second chance. And that was invaluable because we were battle hardened and experienced and we knew what we're going to do. There was no dissent and Willie would have done it in the same way that we all did it.

• 5:43Speaker 02

  And again, quite in my view, perfectly understandably, we didn't win the first confrontation with the miners. We had to compromise, but that merely hardened the view. We can't let them get away with this. And it was a brilliant exercise, Peter Walker and Nigel Lawson, who just piled up the coal at the pits and the power stations.

• 6:12Rory Stewart?

  Can I come in to ask Alistair on this? So presumably your political memory of this is very, very different from Michael's. When you hear about the miracle of how brilliant they were in taking on the miners and how extraordinary Peter Walker and Nigel Lawson were in stockpiling and his memory of the early eighties, yours is very different, right?

• 6:28Alastair Campbell?

  Well, no, I think, no, it's not different. And I think that's where that's where it ended. But along the way, there was an awful lot of really difficult stuff going on politically, which became the kind of fire of politics at that time.

• 6:41Rory Stewart?

  And can I invite you to sort of speak more from the Labour point of view through the early eighties and how you would have responded listening to this speech from nineteen eighty to nineteen eighty six? Oh, the way Michael's talking about taking on the unions and the strikes and the early eighties.

• 6:54Alastair Campbell?

  There's no doubt that's what they were doing. And I think that part of it.

• 6:57Rory Stewart?

  But emotionally, how do you feel?

• 6:59Alastair Campbell?

  Um.

• 6:59Rory Stewart?

  How did you feel at the time?

• 7:00Alastair Campbell?

  Oh, I felt, I was at that time on the Daily Mirror. Very occasionally in the back of Michael's car as he drove around the country, stirring up his own positive profile, can I put it like that? Stirring up a slightly different agenda to the one being taken forward by his wonderful leader.

• 7:21Alastair Campbell?

  And I also remember the Labour, there was a much clearer divide, I think, between the parties at that time and a lot of these big economic and social issues than maybe during the time when I was then on the other side of the political fence with Tony Blair. But listen, Margaret Thatcher, your question about Willie Whitehall, I think if Willie Whitehall had become Prime Minister, as Michael says, we'll never know, I don't think we'd still be talking about him in the way that we still talk about Margaret Thatcher as a figure of radical change. I think Willie would have been a try and quieten the horses and keep things on a nice, steady track.

• 7:56Speaker 02

  But I think you are right that Margaret wasn't particularly reactive personality. I've always said about Margaret, there were two Margarets, one here, the gut, one here. This was very high quality.

• 8:12Alastair Campbell?

  Which was more powerful, the brain or the gut?

• 8:13Speaker 02

  The brain in the end. And there were so many examples of that. But just going back to your question to Alastair, which let me help him. The real confrontation was nineteen sixty eight, Barbara Castle and Harold Wilson, White Paper in Place of Strife. And so the Labour.

• 8:32Alastair Campbell?

  I was eleven.

• 8:34Speaker 02

  Well, you see, I was much rather elder.

• 8:37Alastair Campbell?

  You were in the House of Commons.

• 8:38Speaker 02

  Yes, I was in the House of Commons, yes. Um, so I was in my thirties. The Labour government knew that the union power had to be confronted. Okay, they didn't do it and we can, there's plenty of reasons why. I think Jim Callahan wasn't keen on doing what Harold Wilson wanted to do. But in the end, he played the price because the winter of discontent of nineteen seventy eight was perhaps one of the most acute social tensions of our modern time. And that was under a Labour government. And that was a year before we came to power in seventy nine. So although you could argue whether it was Tory or Labour who did it, the fact is that all governments knew this issue had to be confronted.

• 9:27Alastair Campbell?

  So there you go. That was a quick sneak preview of Rory and me speaking to Lord Heseltine. Things get a little bit heated with a few polite disagreements later on. But if you want to hear the full interview, you just have to search Leading wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to hear new episodes every Monday. That's Leading, L E A D I N G on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. See you over on the Leading feed, maybe chat to you on Discord. And we'll be back here on The Rest Is Politics on Wednesday for our regular podcast.