Rt Hon John Smith

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 30:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety one.

Speaker 30:12

And the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:32

My Castaway this week is a politician. In many quarters he's now seen as the opposition's strongest weapon in the forthcoming electoral battle with the Government. It might not have been so. Two and a half years ago he was struck down by a heart attack which could have ended his career, but he returned to the political fray, trimmer, fitter, and some say even more incisive than before.

Presenter0:53

His principles may be those of a good Scottish Socialist, but his talents are those of a barrister. Supporters chuckle and opponents wriggle when he puts his inquisitorial skills into practice. He is the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, John Smith.

Presenter1:08

Simply that, John Smith, no more nor less.

Rt Hon John Smith1:10

No, I was called after my grandfather, who was a fisherman in the village of Tarbot in Argyll, and it was the family tradition to call the eldest boy after the father's father and the eldest girl after the mother's mother. It's not very original, but I suppose it meant that the same names kept repeating throughout the generations.

Presenter1:25

But has it been an advantage or is it a bit of a disadvantage in life?

Rt Hon John Smith1:28

It's never worried me. I I must say I think my parents had a bit of courage actually, not even putting a middle name of any kind in between. And um in the sort of uh confraternity of John Smiths, I don't count the people with middle names. I don't think they're really full strength somehow. But there's quite a lot of us about. Um and of course if you open a telephone book you see nothing but it. And every time you see how to fill in a form there is your name, Smith John.

Presenter1:52

The distinguishing factor also, though, of course, is your Scottishness. How important is that to you?

Rt Hon John Smith1:57

Oh, it's very important. I think I think it's important to all Scots, but it certainly is to me. I mean, I live in Scotland. I'm very much

Rt Hon John Smith2:04

Bonner brought up there.

Rt Hon John Smith2:05

I like it very much. I've got a sort of deep loyalty to Scotland and um I suppose I think the Scots are the people in the United Kingdom. I'm not saying without prejudice to the others, but they've got the most developed sense of this. I feel that these days anyway. And uh I've been intricately involved with uh Scottish issues like devolution and things like that over the years.

Presenter2:23

You say you live in Scotland, but of course you you live in London for most of the week. You left your family behind in Scotland on purpose. Is it that you feel the Scottish education and the Scottish accent is in a sense for you anyway superior?

Rt Hon John Smith2:37

No, it's not superior, uh but it gives a person an identity. And I felt my children should uh be educated in Scotland, which I must say, um I've got confidence in the uh system there. Again, without prejudice to others, but I just believe it's uh

Rt Hon John Smith2:50

Uh better worked out and I think it's

Presenter2:52

You mean you do think it's superior?

Rt Hon John Smith2:53

Yeah, well

Rt Hon John Smith2:54

Um I think I'm forced to admit that. Um and I think uh a lot of uh things could be copied from Scotland as it happens, but then I'm biased of course.

Presenter2:55

I think

Presenter3:03

But what about the accent? Do you consider it superior?

Rt Hon John Smith3:05

I think it's clear, and of course it's not superior, but it's real. And I felt the children should know where they came from, especially in a world of politics. I think it's awfully sad when you see these sort of diplomatic children who've lived in every capital in the world but don't know where they come from. I wanted mine to feel well, at least whatever they did afterwards, if they went to the end of the earth, they knew where they sprang from, what they were all about.

Presenter3:19

Yeah.

Presenter3:25

But what would happen if a Labour Government uh won the next election? Would you then be prepared to move south of the border and move your wife at least into number eleven Downing Street?

Rt Hon John Smith3:34

I think I would, and I would be free to do so, because they've now left school and uh will have left school by then. And I think probably with a job like Chancellor, you've really got to be on the spot.

Presenter3:44

What about your desert island? Now, is that a Scottish one? Where do you imagine it would be?

Rt Hon John Smith3:45

What's about

Rt Hon John Smith3:49

I thought it was in the South Seas somewhere, um, with palm trees and sand and quite a lot of sunshine, I thought. I didn't think it was up some lonely loch in the middle.

Presenter3:58

It's wherever you want it to be, wouldn't it?

Rt Hon John Smith4:00

Well, I'll take it to the South Seas, I think.

Presenter4:02

And what sort of music will keep your misery at bay on it?

Rt Hon John Smith4:06

Well, quite a wide variety uh of music. I uh tastes are pretty wide, but opera is an important interest, and uh I got increasingly uh interested in opera and orchestral music in recent years.

Rt Hon John Smith4:19

I didn't drive it on my own. I followed my wife, who's an opera fanatic, and she took me, and I sort of trailed along behind her to operas, and then I got interested myself.

Rt Hon John Smith4:27

Uh I like uh Scottish songs and um I like odd things like Country and Western and

Presenter4:32

The

Rt Hon John Smith4:33

Uh I'll take a mixture of things with me.

Presenter4:35

So what's the first one?

Rt Hon John Smith4:36

The first one's a Gallic uh hymn, Child in a Manger, uh which is an old Gallic tune called Bonesson from Banesson and Mull. I think it was written by a lady called Mary Macdonald in the nineteenth century, and it has become all sorts of other things. It's become the tune for Morning Has Broken, but it's an old Gallic melody to start with and I think it's a lovely tune.

Speaker 44:59

Aranyana Vegmari.

Speaker 45:04

Look at all the in

Rt Hon John Smith5:05

Uh A body.

Speaker 45:11

Anikta sahudin garnach.

Rt Hon John Smith5:12

Aniktona so

Speaker 45:19

Sonya the naravias kathu

Rt Hon John Smith5:19

Sonyathana Vaska.

Speaker 45:30

The menu is the same. Granoches cara sauce.

Rt Hon John Smith5:42

This time

Presenter5:43

Bye.

Speaker 45:45

Skjakusem Fobazpasi

Presenter5:53

The Gallic version of Child in a Manger, sung by the choir Cossia Lochatuoth, from Bunessen in Mull, conducted by Rodney Mackenzie. A folk song from John Smith's youth. Are you a singer yourself, John?

Rt Hon John Smith6:04

I was. I used to sing at the mods, uh, which are the local um Gallic festivals. I didn't speak Gallic uh myself. Gallic had died out largely in Middle Gael, where I was brought up, although my mother's got quite a lot of Gallic. But we learnt the words and uh we uh sang in the Gallic choirs and uh I actually won a medal once uh for singing at a local mod.

Presenter6:23

And do you still sing now after a wee drama for?

Rt Hon John Smith6:26

Yes, I'm known to break into Gaelic songs late at night.

Presenter6:30

Your childhood sounds little short of idyllic, really. Born in a remote Highland village on the shores of a loch, your grandfather a fisherman, your father the local schoolmaster. Was it as romantic as it sounds?

Rt Hon John Smith6:41

I think it was a very happy place to be brought up. I think there's a lot to be said for small villages. They're not all peaceful. I mean, there are tremendous battles and clashes of personalities go on, and people who haven't been brought up in a small village don't sum sometimes understand that. But it was in the countryside. It was near the sea. I was mad on boats and I enjoyed that very much. And we were a little slight problem being the schoolmaster's son, because there were sort of major figures in the village were the schoolmaster, the doctor, and the minister. And what you were

Rt Hon John Smith7:14

sort of marked out slightly uh f for being that. Uh but the great thing about it was that you were very close with everybody. There was no class consciousness, there were no divisions, uh and there was a sense of unity about the place.

Presenter7:24

Where was it?

Rt Hon John Smith7:25

Ardrushig. Aldrushig, which is at one end of the Kunan Canal, where where the Kunan Canal goes from Loch Féin uh right through to the Western Isles basically. I enjoyed that uh that and I think it was a good home to be brought up in and um sort of um mixture of radicalism and Christianity, which I think was quite an a potent influence on me.

Rt Hon John Smith7:45

But I left home at quite an early age I I had because we were such a small place.

Rt Hon John Smith7:49

Uh there wasn't a school after the age of fourteen, so I went off and stayed in lodgings. I just like to go to school.

Presenter7:54

But all by yourself?

Rt Hon John Smith7:55

by myself in a place called Danoon. I went to Danoon Grammar School.

Presenter7:59

How far away was that?

Rt Hon John Smith8:00

It's about sixty, seventy miles away. But it meant that you were effectively away for term time and you just came back home at Christmas and, uh

Presenter8:07

So you had a a landlady in a little room and took yourself off to school every morning?

Rt Hon John Smith8:09

Yeah.

Rt Hon John Smith8:10

Yeah.

Rt Hon John Smith8:11

That was a little bit sad. On the other hand, I suppose it encouraged independence and standing on your own feet.

Presenter8:16

No homesickness for you.

Rt Hon John Smith8:18

I didn't have any. No, I was quite glad to go. I didn't like to put that too curdly to my appearance, but I enjoyed the independence and the freedom.

Presenter8:25

Second record.

Rt Hon John Smith8:26

Uh the Easter hymn from Cavallier Rusticana. This I think was the first opera I really thoroughly enjoyed and uh I understood it. It's a pretty basic plot um and uh I understood what it would and I thought this was just so beautiful um that I felt I would have to take this with me to my desert island.

Presenter9:43

The Easter Hymn from Cavalleria Rusticana by Mascagni, with Pauline Tinsley, and the chorus and orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, conducted by Lamberto Gardelli.

Presenter9:54

Tell me about uh university, John, Glasgow, where you read history and law. But you'd already joined the Labour Party by then.

Rt Hon John Smith10:01

Yes, I had. I actually joined the Labour Party when I was at school when I was sixteen, and uh I was involved a bit in political activity at school and in the debating society. And I now went to Glasgow University where I did a history degree. We had the tradition then, which I think was good, that uh before you did a law degree you did a general degree first, so that you were properly educated, as it were, before you got trained in the law.

Presenter10:20

So you were there for what, seven years or more?

Rt Hon John Smith10:21

Seven years, yes. But in the last three years I did an L L B and you combined that with an apprenticeship in a solicitor's office so that you could actually be a qualified solicitor at the end of that period.

Presenter10:31

And you could earn some money?

Rt Hon John Smith10:32

And you could, uh and I did, uh but I wanted to go to the bar but I couldn't afford to go to the bar so and I had no connections in the law at all so I had to be a solicitor for a year or two, which was very good in many ways because it uh while it it kept me um sort of behind a bit in in getting to the bar uh as early as I wanted, uh on the other hand I got a pretty good training and uh I think the difference between the bar and solicitors is not quite as wide in Scotland as it is in England.

Presenter10:59

But you'd already started um developing some skills towards going to the bar because of course you'd started debating. There was a very flourishing political club system in the university, wasn't there?

Rt Hon John Smith11:07

Glasgow University has always been a great university for debating and it's political debating, so I mean it couldn't have been designed better for me. So I took to it like a duck to water.

Presenter11:16

Well, because politics was a passion from then. Did you realize then that you would have to make a choice between the two, politics and the law, eventually?

Rt Hon John Smith11:23

I think I did, but I didn't know when and how. And uh these things just resolved themselves. I was a candidate when I was very young. I was a candidate when I was a student at university when I was twenty-three in a by-election. And eventually I was asked to stand for a seat that was a pretty safe seat, and it was clear to me that if I was selected for this, then I would become a Member of Parliament. And that was in 1969, then I entered Parliament in 1970. So cutting short, I suppose, my legal career.

Presenter11:48

So you always knew, did you, that that when it came to the crunch you would choose politics, not the law?

Rt Hon John Smith11:53

Yes, I wouldn't have been desperately disappointed, I think, if I had not uh got into politics. And I think if I got flung out of Parliament uh I wouldn't be too uh disconsolate about it. I would just go back and uh to my trade, as it were, go back uh to the bar.

Rt Hon John Smith12:07

I I suppose it's becoming harder the further one's away from it. But certainly in the early years I wasn't worried about that and I could have done either. But I'm glad I went into politics. The only regret I have is that out of my twenty one years in Parliament, sixteen of them have been in opposition. I mean that's something I hope to put right fairly soon.

Presenter12:23

Record number three.

Rt Hon John Smith12:25

A Fond Kiss uh by Kenneth McKellar. I think Kenneth's a lovely singer and I think this is one of Burns' most beautiful songs. And of course Burns, not apart from being a poet, was a great collector of folk songs. I think Walter Scott said of this one it was the essence of a thousand love tales and I'd like to take that with me to think about on my desert title.

Speaker 412:44

Had we never loved say kindly Had we never loved say blindly Never bare perturbed

Speaker 413:07

We had never been broken hearted.

Presenter13:19

A fond kiss sung by Kenneth McKellar. The words by Robbie Burns. Um you need a lot of money, John, to study for the bar. It's a lengthy and expensive path. Didn't the general election of'sixty six net you the wherewithal?

Rt Hon John Smith13:32

Yes, well I was helped a bit because I put some shrewd wagers on. We discovered, Tom Chums and I, that the Bookies were having evens for the Conservatives to hold seats or to lose seats under five thousand because it was clear there was a Labour swing going on.

Rt Hon John Smith13:46

So we found a seat that uh we thought couldn't be lost, even by the Scottish Conservatives, and um we put some money. Then we were afflicted by conscience about that, and said we shouldn't be betting on on Conservatives, so we bet on a Labour victory in another seat in Berrykineslothian, which uh the late John McIntosh was standing for, and I think we doubled them up together and we netted quite a lot of money from that, and that allowed me the sort of freedom to both go to the bar and get married at the same time, so it was quite a fortunate bet.

Presenter14:13

My goodness, one has visions of you staggering from the bookmakers with kind of large bags marks.

Rt Hon John Smith14:17

Costs quite as much as that.

Presenter14:18

Bh

Rt Hon John Smith14:19

But uh actually the bookmaker, when he saw that we were quite keen on it, put a lot on himself actually thought that we must know something about what we were doing. But um politics can sometimes be done to advantage.

Presenter14:29

But as you say, in nineteen seventy it was that you entered Parliament for for North Lanark. Um uh you've mentioned that you've spent sixteen of your first twenty one years in politics in opposition. That must be

Presenter14:41

The most enormous frustration for a man who obviously considers himself able. Politics apart, do you have a a sense of personal waste?

Rt Hon John Smith14:49

I don't think I think I perhaps ought to have, but I don't have because I think while I'm very frustrated with opposition, I find it temperamentally difficult because I want to do things and I enjoyed very much being in government and the contrast between the two is very stark indeed. On the other hand, opposition is very important to our democratic life. It is very important that there's an alternative, that there's an argument, that there's a debate. And I suppose one's performing a very useful constitutional role by putting ministers on the spot and seeing them come and seeing them go, as I've seen quite a number come and go. But I really must confess that I would find it difficult to stay too long in opposition because I hanker after having the opportunity to change things. After all, that's why one is in politics, to see things change for the better, to see some of the ideas you believe in put into practice. And in opposition, all you do is criticise and put forward alternatives without having the chance to prove that they can work.

Presenter15:43

It was said that that Jim Callaghan saw you as as a future leader. Did he disclose this to you?

Rt Hon John Smith15:48

No, he never put it in these terms. He encouraged me greatly, though, um and gave me my first chance in the Cabinet at the age of forty, which was um

Rt Hon John Smith15:56

Quite a sobering responsibility. I remember the first day I went to the department it suddenly hit me that I couldn't just write memos to my superiors any longer.

Presenter16:04

You were it.

Rt Hon John Smith16:04

You were it. I was it and the sort of buck stop there. But uh Jim would be far too careful ever to sort of uh say that anyway would be a leader. Um he was very shrewd and canny uh in that respect.

Presenter16:15

People of course speculate today on your being a potential Labour leader. I know you feel that the party has a perfectly good one already. But but why do you think it is that that Neil Kinnock constantly runs behind his own party in the polls?

Rt Hon John Smith16:26

Because most leaders of the opposition do. Uh it's extremely difficult for a leader of the opposition to run ahead of his party because a prime minister will normally run ahead of the government because he or she is in action all the time. They're doing things, they're demonstrating things, and the leader of the opposition has to react. It is really one of the most unenviable jobs in any political system in the world.

Presenter16:45

If the next election is lost, would you stand as party leader?

Rt Hon John Smith16:49

Well let me say I think that his qualities are quite different from any that I might have in the sense I think he is a very courageous man, a man of strong character and that's why I think he'll make an excellent Prime Minister. But if for some reason or another the leadership of the Labour Party became vacant I would consider standing for that. But I must say I'm not driven by some sense that you have to be leader of a party or you have to be the Prime Minister of the country to have had a valid political life. I used to wonder I mean Rab Butler if you read his books always was always slightly kind of disappointed that he never became Prime Minister. When you think of all the things that he did, why on earth he wanted to be disappointed? I don't know. I mean it's quite enough to play an important role in the political life of your country without having to be the leader.

Presenter17:31

You'd settle for Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Rt Hon John Smith17:33

I would myself personally, yeah.

Presenter17:34

Look what happened to the last man who said that.

Presenter17:38

Should we have some more music?

Rt Hon John Smith17:39

Um I would like to have the uh prisoner's song um from Fidelio, the only opera which Beethoven wrote. And it I don't know, it sums up for me um devotion and freedom, uh the whole opera, and this particular one, when the prisoners come out from their dungeon, is just a very moving moment.

Presenter18:39

The Prisoner's Song from Beethoven's Fidelio with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Sir George Schulte.

Presenter18:46

Tell me about the heart attack, John, october nineteen eighty eight. I'm sure you recall it in every awful detail.

Rt Hon John Smith18:53

Vividly, yes. It was on a Sunday and I wasn't feeling very well. But I never thought I was going to get a heart attack. It was my wife actually who spotted it. Things weren't just quite what they should be. And I didn't have any of the classic symptoms either. Um uh but she got a neighbor who was a doctor to come and see me and he took me into the hospital.

Rt Hon John Smith19:11

And I went to Edinburgh Rawl Infirmary and the and I sat in the casualty department while he went off to get a doctor to come and see me. And then I was given a a portable electricocardigame thing and uh the young doctor who uh

Rt Hon John Smith19:25

looked at it and got the print out, said, I think you're all right. Um come and see me later And as I was dressing to go and see him I just conked out, I collapsed on the floor. And when I next came to I was on a trolley getting wheeled into the intensive care unit.

Presenter19:36

But you were in the right place at the right time.

Rt Hon John Smith19:38

I was could not have been in a better place and I think within minutes I was in the intensive care unit and you there's quite im important steps they take.

Rt Hon John Smith19:46

I was very fortunate.

Presenter19:47

So the outcome might have been different had you not been able to do it.

Rt Hon John Smith19:49

It might well one doesn't know. I just have no way of knowing and I don't think too much about that. But uh I was fortunate to be there at the time and but it's not an experience I'd like to go through again.

Presenter19:53

Um

Presenter19:59

But what you didn't do, which you might have done at that stage, is give up politics. Did you ever consider that?

Rt Hon John Smith20:04

Oh, you have to. Oh, you have to in that circumstance. I mean, I thought about it quite a lot and I thought, you know, w will I be fit to do it? Do I want to do it? I mean, I could have walked away from uh politics uh without any difficulty then if I'd had any doubts about it. Uh but I thought about it very carefully, talked about it to my family and um

Rt Hon John Smith20:23

We all felt that that was what I really wanted to do and uh my doctor said I would be fine, so and it's turned out that way, and uh I'm very happy I was able to recover and carry on in politics.

Presenter20:34

But how differently do you lead your life now? I mean, you're a calorie counter for a start. Yes.

Rt Hon John Smith20:38

Yes, I've got to be more careful about that. And I'm interested in exercise and things like that. But that's been good. I mean, that's been positive. And uh

Presenter20:46

But st do you still drive yourself as hard? Do you still stay up late at night and be up again early next morning?

Rt Hon John Smith20:51

I try not to. I try what I have done is uh cut down uh

Rt Hon John Smith20:55

moving around the country to the extent I was doing. And I was doing incredible things, like I mean sort of overnight train journeys, changing at crew and all that at two in the morning to get to somewhere else. I'm very bad at saying no to uh going to do things that I thought were needing to be done and uh I would crisscross the country on various political things and I'm much more careful about that now. And that's probably a sensible thing in any event. Uh so I haven't lost very much by that.

Presenter21:21

It's nevertheless a shock, isn't it, to discover that you are not indestructible when you've presumed you have been for all those years.

Rt Hon John Smith21:27

You feel very vulnerable uh lying in a hospital bed all wired up and uh people obviously very concerned uh about what happens. It's much worse for relatives though. My wife arrived at the hospital which will tell you in half an hour, you know, uh whether he's going to survive or not. I think that's much worse than uh in a sense being the victim.

Presenter21:41

I think

Presenter21:44

Um next piece of music, number five.

Rt Hon John Smith21:46

Well, Country and Western, I've Loved and Lost Again by Patsy Klein. Um I like Country and Western music and my daughters are devoted to it and we used to play it in the car when the family went around and we learnt the words off and we all sang them uh together as the uh tape was played on the car. So I've got very happy family memories associated with that.

Speaker 422:16

I've loved and lost again Oh, what a crazy world we're living in.

Speaker 422:27

Love has no chance to

Presenter22:30

The wind

Presenter22:31

I've loved and lost again

Presenter22:35

I've Loved and Lost Again, sung by Patsy Klein. You mentioned exercise, hill climbing, John Smith. Don't you suffer from a very Scottish disease from for which there's no known cure, called Munrosis?

Rt Hon John Smith22:46

Monroe bagging, yes, it's a very bad I'm in a very almost terminal condition by it. Um where you've got the ambition to climb as many as possible of the two hundred and seventy-seven Munros classified by Sir Hugh Munro a hundred years ago this year, when he classified them on hills above three thousand feet that stood as sort of separate and independent mountains. And it's rather subjective judgment as to which ones are the Munros, but they're accepted by the walking and climbing fraternity and you try to do as many as you can.

Presenter23:13

And how many of you danced here?

Rt Hon John Smith23:14

I've done 69 so far.

Presenter23:16

And there are two hundred and seventy-seven.

Rt Hon John Smith23:17

I've got quite a lot to do, as you can gather from that.

Presenter23:20

But it's walking, it's not rock climbing.

Rt Hon John Smith23:22

No, it's not climbing at all. In fact, I wouldn't dare climb. Um it's really hill walking in uh lonely and desolate country. But uh I love it. Um I like the exercise, I like getting up to the the peaks and I love the desolation and the uh feeling of remoteness, which is very important. I think the Highlands are one of the few parts of Europe that is genuinely kind of

Presenter23:43

Please

Rt Hon John Smith23:45

lonely country where you can walk for days without seeing people and you just see deer and what not. And um I enjoy it very much indeed. And it's just this mixture of beautiful scenery, uh a feeling of being detached and also good exercise, which I think is a winning combination.

Presenter24:01

You're obviously, though, a man who likes goals and tasks and achievements. You're gregarious, as you say. You're going to have a terrible time on the desert island, aren't you?

Rt Hon John Smith24:04

Yeah.

Rt Hon John Smith24:05

We said

Rt Hon John Smith24:08

terrible. I mean, I I would try to escape from day one, I think. I would be plotting my way out of it and trying to find a way in which I could get out uh because I would find the loneliness terrible. I think I would sunbathe for the first two or three days and that would be quite good fun.

Presenter24:22

You're not, I suspect, much of a a shelter knocker upper.

Rt Hon John Smith24:25

I don't think so, no. I would concentrate on building a boat to get away.

Rt Hon John Smith24:29

Uh I'll have a shot at it.

Presenter24:31

And you could fish'cause your granddad likes to taught you that.

Rt Hon John Smith24:32

Um oh he was a herring fisherman. He fished with nets, but I can actually. Uh I used to when I was a boy be able to get togs out of bones with some facility. I think that would come back to me and I would manage to survive all right on the fish, I think.

Presenter24:45

So survival, but with a strong emphasis on escape.

Rt Hon John Smith24:48

Oh, as soon as possible. Get away. Yeah.

Presenter24:50

Music, please.

Rt Hon John Smith24:51

A Brooks violin concerto, uh number one in G minor, just a beautiful piece of music.

Presenter25:56

Bruck's violin concerto number one in G minor, opus twenty six, part of the Adaggio, played by Salvatore Akado and the Gewanthaus Orchestra Leipzig, conducted by Kurt Mazur.

Presenter26:09

The Labour Party were, I'm sure, John, looking forward to a general election with Mrs Thatcher and with the poll tax. Both of those foxes have now been shot. That alone makes the task that much more difficult. But isn't your fundamental problem one of convincing the electorate that you could do it, that the Labour Party is capable, after all these years in opposition, of running the country?

Rt Hon John Smith26:29

I think that's the task for all political parties in all circumstances, and of course you're right in saying that it's a special obligation on a party that's been in opposition for some time. Although I think we are succeeding, we are assisted greatly, of course, by the incompetence of the present administration, particularly in the field of economics, and you wouldn't have to be too ambitious to see you could handle things a little bit better than they did. But it is certainly there, and the credibility of a political party, of its programme, and the people who would be administering the programme are crucial to the democratic decision.

Presenter26:58

And people people are therefore sceptical about your plans, economically speaking, your plans and your promises, because they don't know whether to believe your mathematics or not.

Rt Hon John Smith27:02

Yeah.

Rt Hon John Smith27:04

Sorry, cool.

Rt Hon John Smith27:07

I think it's a proper attitude to take for an electorate to be sceptical about politics. I never object to that. That's a challenge for me to persuade them that their scepticism is not justified, but it's a very good starting point. And that's an intelligent and mature democracy that says, well, prove it to me. Persuade me. Show me you can do it. Now that's a good testing process and it's good for politicians to go through that.

Presenter27:28

But again, hasn't John Major shot your foxes as as Chancellor of the Exchequer? I mean, you were talking about entry into the ERM, which he's done. You talk about bringing down inflation and interest rates, which has happened. The poll tax has gone, as I say. In a sense,

Rt Hon John Smith27:34

It's done.

Rt Hon John Smith27:43

You know, we've got plenty of clothes. But uh imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. And uh we were right about a number of things and they've had to understand that and and uh accept that.

Presenter27:52

Again, phrases like world class economy, a fairer and better society, well trained and educated workforce. I mean, i in a sense you're all calling for the same thing, it's just the methods that are different.

Rt Hon John Smith28:02

Well, we know what has happened in the last ten years about a number of these things. We are far from having a world class economy. We are having an economy which is at the bottom of the European League. And worst of all, in education and training, we have slipped behind the rest of Europe in a way which I think is very bad. If there's one thing I'm absolutely determined to play some part in doing,

Rt Hon John Smith28:22

It is to help create the best educated and trained workforce in Europe. I mean, this links me back to my past, to the schoolhouse. I've always I mean, I suppose I was indoctrinated by education, and I suppose the Scots carry it with them easily. But I really do want to see that done. I really want to see this is a country in which you can say after, say, ten years, whatever else is right or wrong here, this is the place where young people get every opportunity, where they can go as far as they can, as far as their abilities will take them, as far as they want to go, and that this is a land of true opportunity.

Presenter28:54

Next record.

Rt Hon John Smith28:56

Uh The Rod to the Isles by sung by Father Sidney McEwan, it's an alt recording, it goes back to the 1930s, but I knew Father Sidney McEwan very well. He was the Catholic priest in Loch Ilped, the village nearest to the one I lived in, and uh he was a marvellous man. I used to look after his bow attacks when I was a boy, but he he lived as a Catholic priest in a very Presbyterian part of the country and was uh a very well liked man and uh he's also a very beautiful singer and uh I would like to have my memories of my childhood uh

Rt Hon John Smith29:24

Confirmed by listening to him.

Speaker 429:29

Ah, far a cronin is pulling me away as I take I wave my crummock to the road

Rt Hon John Smith29:33

Yeah.

Rt Hon John Smith29:35

Yeah.

Speaker 429:38

The far cool and their good in love on me, as stem I weigh the sunlight for my load.

Rt Hon John Smith29:38

Yeah.

Speaker 429:46

Sure, by Toul and Lochranough and Loch Arbour I will go by heather tracks We haven't in the wise If it's thinking in your inner heart The braggarts in mustep You've never smelt the tangle or the ice

Rt Hon John Smith29:49

Yeah.

Rt Hon John Smith29:50

Yeah.

Rt Hon John Smith30:02

Tangle all

Speaker 430:04

The far coolins are putting love on me, that's the my way, MacCruma.

Presenter30:12

The Road to the Isle, sung by Father Sidney McEwan. There's obviously a very sentimental side to John Smith, which which the public doesn't very often get to see. Do you consciously hide it?

Rt Hon John Smith30:22

Um no, I don't consciously hide it. It's just not an occasion to reveal it, but I think I am really quite badly sentimental.

Presenter30:28

And what about the the folk of your native village? Um do they get to see anything of their famous son these days?

Rt Hon John Smith30:33

Occasionally, yes, they often write to me with problems. They think uh if you come from Archyle that you were there to solve them and I've got to write diplomatically saying they've got an their own Member of Parliament. Uh but that's the style. Um I remember when I became Secretary of State for Trade and was responsible for merchant shipping, a local fisherman wrote me a letter saying, Now that you're the Secretary of State for Trade, John, you can sort out the accident I had with a boat when it hit the pier. And uh the the civil servants in the department were very puzzled as to how to reply to that, so I took it away from them and replied to that to myself because I didn't think they would handle it with sufficient tact.

Presenter31:03

And if you set out from that village again now um you know, if you were now aged eighteen and going off to university, would you do it any different the second time out?

Rt Hon John Smith31:12

No, I don't think so. Um I'd be very fortunate, I think, and uh

Rt Hon John Smith31:16

And having had so far, anyway, uh a rather exciting and fairly adventurous life, and I've enjoyed it. I've had many, many good friends, and um I've on the whole enjoyed the voyage and I wouldn't change a single thing, I don't think.

Presenter31:29

That's a big thing to be able to say. I mean, you must class yourself, therefore, as a very lucky man.

Rt Hon John Smith31:33

extraordinarily fortunate, not just in terms of surviving illness, but also in having a happy family and uh having a very enjoyable life and working at what I want to do and uh sort of feeling you know secure I think is very important. And I think it starts in a sense actually if you're brought up in a good family and that you've got an obligation to try and create one yourself.

Rt Hon John Smith31:51

And I don't know whether we have done that or not, but we've certainly tried. And I enjoy politics. I enjoy the camaraderie of politics. I also think I'm engaged in something quite important. I think I I need to feel it's important and it's worth putting effort into and that and it's also work that will benefit others.

Presenter32:07

We end with Mozart, I think.

Rt Hon John Smith32:09

Yes, well, Mozart's just the most splendid uh of all composers and uh the Mozart operas I think are the greatest joys of my life to listen to. And I'd like to have uh a piece from near the end of The Marriage of Figaro.

Presenter33:22

Jessie Norman singing the final aria from Mozart's Marriage of Figaro with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Sir Colin Davis. So which one of the eight will you need most, John?

Rt Hon John Smith33:33

What's up? That's the one I would take, without any hesitation.

Presenter33:37

No island is complete without him. Um a book

Rt Hon John Smith33:42

I would like to take an anthology of poems, and an anthology of poems, because I think poems can be read over and over again. And anything else that you read, I mean, if it's a novel or whatever, you're um you've sort of got the story, I think, in a sense. But uh poems uh of a great var and with a great variety of them in an anthology would be sound.

Presenter33:57

Through the ages.

Rt Hon John Smith33:58

Yes, or yes, a very sort of Catholic selection.

Presenter34:01

and a luxury.

Rt Hon John Smith34:03

I would like, I think, to take a case of champagne, and I'd enjoyed drinking it, and I now send messages out in the bottles.

Presenter34:09

Oh, you can't do that.

Rt Hon John Smith34:10

Does that make sense

Presenter34:12

Don't tell me you're gonna do it and then you can

Rt Hon John Smith34:13

Well

Rt Hon John Smith34:14

I'll just enjoy the champagne.

Presenter34:15

Would you like a case of champagne, Johnson?

Rt Hon John Smith34:17

Yeah.

Presenter34:18

You shall have one.

Presenter34:20

John Smith, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Rt Hon John Smith34:24

Thank you.

Speaker 334:32

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.