Rt Hon William Hague MP

Speaker 10:00

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. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and one, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:31

My castaway this week is a politician. He had the air and enjoyed the achievements of someone destined for success. At the age of sixteen, a young face under a basin of blonde hair, he made a famously stirring speech to his party conference. He followed this with the presidency of the Oxford Union, a first-class degree, a job with an elite management consultancy, and then a seat in Parliament. A cabinet post followed, and then, when his party was humiliated at the general election of 1997, it chose him to lead it back to glory.

Presenter1:02

Earlier this year, however, dreams of glory ended. His party suffered a second crushing defeat, and the career which had risen and glittered evaporated overnight. He appears to be entirely stoical. Having a major discontinuity in life at the age of forty is an opportunity to do things you've always wanted to do, he says. In fact, you could say, I've got younger as I've got older. He is, of course, William Hague. So you're you're leading your life backwards, really, William, is that's what it is.

Rt Hon William Hague MP1:30

Well, you could think of it that way. I'm s I've certainly in the last few months since I gave up the party leadership I've had the nicest time I've had for a very long time.

Presenter1:38

You're a young man with a brilliant future behind you, is what they say. Cruelly, cruelly, they say.

Rt Hon William Hague MP1:40

Yes, people come up to you and say, We know who you used to be.

Rt Hon William Hague MP1:45

And so but I'm having a very nice timely doing many things that I've always wanted.

Presenter1:49

Like what what are these childish pleasures that your adult career precludes?

Rt Hon William Hague MP1:52

Well one is learning to play the piano, which I've wanted to do since I was five years old, and for some reason never had the opportunity to do. And so I'm doing that now, and I started the day after the election. I resigned the morning after the election, went home to Yorkshire, went to bed for a few hours, got up and my neighbour who knew this was an ambition of mine walked in with a book about learning the piano and I started that day. Now I have a proper teacher and I'm hugely enjoying it.

Presenter2:17

You put a a a very brave face uh on it all the way through the campaign, but obviously you would have known. You knew what the polls were say. The question is, when did you know?

Rt Hon William Hague MP2:28

Well I knew for a l a long time that the election might not go the way that we wanted it to. Obviously hoped that we would gain a larger number of seats. I thought we would narrow the gap with the Labour Party in votes, which we did. But that wasn't reflected in gaining many seats in the Party.

Presenter2:55

You made that plan I know, and you said time and again, I think, in in interviews before the election, I will take personal responsibility. So you always knew what you were going to do. But that means there was a kind of time lapse between your personal acceptance of it and the public acceptance of it. You you made your plan. I um what I'm interested in is when did you make that plan?

Rt Hon William Hague MP3:15

Well, certainly some months before the election. However, acceptance would be not quite the right word, because of course I was still fighting to succeed. That is the thing I would most have liked to do.

Presenter3:25

Of course. But I what I'm asking about is when personally you approached that and you thought, it's not going to work. This is going to be humiliation. How do I salvage something from it?

Rt Hon William Hague MP3:38

I suppose around the turn of the year I had my alternative plan ready. I thought it might well work out the way that it did work out. But I didn't let that distract me.

Presenter3:47

But did you spot, did did the management consultant in you say, I know what we can salvage from this, I can go with dignity?

Rt Hon William Hague MP3:55

Yes, I thought it was important for the party and for me to be defeated but not diminished, and that if I was going to go I should go on my own terms and at my own time. So I had a contingency plan.

Presenter4:07

And does that help you, how much does that help you absorb the distress of public humiliation? Because that's what it was.

Rt Hon William Hague MP4:14

It helps a lot to know what you would do if you were not doing the job that you're enjoying and you're doing that day, to know that there is something else that you would like to do. But I didn't feel a sense of personal humiliation. I thought I'd done my job, that it hadn't gone as well as it should have done.

Rt Hon William Hague MP4:31

Therefore I would do something else. It's very straightforward.

Presenter4:34

Tell me about your first record.

Rt Hon William Hague MP4:36

Well, my first record is is a piece of music which is one of the first that I've learnt to play on the piano. It will be played in this recording, I'm sure, far better than I can play it. But it's a Chopin, it's his uh prelude in E minor, and I've enjoyed learning it over the last few months.

Presenter4:46

It's only Vladimir Azhaknaz, etc.

Presenter5:54

Vladimir Ashkenazi playing Chopin's Prelude number four in E minor. Let's um get that speech out of the way, William, the one made to the party conference when you were sixteen. Half of you won't be around in thirty years' time, you now notoriously said. Apparently your Auntie Mary rang to tell your Auntie Marge that our William was on the telly.

Presenter6:13

They were aghast, eh?

Rt Hon William Hague MP6:15

I think they were. They thought I was just having a day off school.

Presenter6:17

Had you planned it a long time in advance?

Rt Hon William Hague MP6:19

I had planned it because I I had attended the previous year's party conference when I was fifteen, and I saw a seventeen year old give a speech, and the competitive instinct in me said, Well, I can do that, I can and I'll only be sixteen next year, I'll have a go.

Presenter6:31

Oof.

Rt Hon William Hague MP6:32

So I did have a go, and of course I never expected it would cause the fuss that it did.

Presenter6:36

You were very good, though. I mean, had you practised in front of the bedroom mirror?

Rt Hon William Hague MP6:39

And no, I hadn't. And I don't do that. I don't practice speeches aloud. I still don't.

Presenter6:43

And this was a boy who who could quote now famously we know this could quote the name of every MP in the land in his constituency in his majority and read Hans Hard in bed. Is this all true?

Rt Hon William Hague MP6:53

Well, I was very interested in politics, so yes, I could do all those things. I think sometimes where people have gone gone wrong in um looking at my career is thinking that was all I did. If I did that, then I must have been entirely obsessed with politics. But I was absorbed in so many other things. I was in the school choir, even though I couldn't sing very well. I was in all school plays and because I loved acting. I went on all the German trips, even though I didn't study German. I went on all the R E trips in the sixth form, even though I didn't study R E.

Presenter7:21

Why?

Rt Hon William Hague MP7:22

I was busy. I was the house captain even though though I didn't do much sport at that time. So I was just extremely busy. I was probably as busy as a sixteen, seventeen year old as I am now.

Presenter7:27

It's probably as basic

Presenter7:30

So what did your friends at school think of you then? Because that that's forgive the word, but s slightly freakish, isn't it, to do all of that?

Rt Hon William Hague MP7:38

To them it wasn't, though, because they knew me, so they didn't turn against me and say he's a freak. They were still very much my friends, and we had a great time.

Presenter7:46

You were just William. What about the uh what about the sisters? Three big sisters. You were the baby of the family. Um were you indulged or?

Rt Hon William Hague MP7:54

No, I used to regard them as quite a nuisance, really. I'm very fond of my sister now. I love my sisters. But to a little boy with three elder sisters, you know, they always wanted to play with a little boy. They never quite appreciated the importance of what boys were interested in, and that the train set was far more important than whatever girls wanted to do in their teens.

Presenter8:12

But when you started to do all this sort of stuff and and and make speeches at party conferences, they must have thought you were, you know, getting above your station, as it were.

Rt Hon William Hague MP8:19

You can't get above your station in our family. My sister Veronica used to write to me dear Tory Pig. She used to start her letters just to make sure I wasn't getting too grand.

Presenter8:30

Record number two.

Rt Hon William Hague MP8:31

Well record number two makes me think of Yorkshire, makes me think of my constituency. It's Nimrod. Catrick Garrison is in my constituency. Huge military presence. And also it's a very English place, and this is very English music.

Presenter9:44

Part of Elgar's Enigma Variation No. Nine, Nimrod, played by the London Philharmonic, conducted by Sir Adrian Bolt. Um William, the life plan, stated age thirteen, yes. You were going to go to Oxford, get involved in the union, become an MP, engaged at thirty five, married at thirty six, PM by forty. I mean you were that specific, William.

Rt Hon William Hague MP10:03

Not really. I think there's been a bit of uh post rationalization here by members of the family or friends who describe what plan I had when I was thirteen. I certainly wanted to

Presenter10:13

You drafted it.

Rt Hon William Hague MP10:13

I did want to become an MP when I was a teenager.

Presenter10:15

Yeah.

Presenter10:15

And why? If you were thinking all of this at the beginning of the seventies, w what it was the drama, was it, of those two elections in'74? Who governs the country? Was that what it was?

Rt Hon William Hague MP10:26

It was an extremely arresting time in in British politics. We'd had the three day week, the trade unions were thought to be more powerful than the Government. It was a dramatic time in politics, and you could see it being played out in South Yorkshire, where I lived.

Presenter10:40

So that's where it all began, and and you followed the line we mentioned just now pretty precisely, really, that you designed in adolescence. You won a scholarship to Oxford, you went to Maudlin, read PPE, got a first, President of the Union and the Conservative Association, and then into McKinsey's as a management consultant. Was that something you just did to mark time until you got a seat?

Rt Hon William Hague MP11:00

Originally, probably yes. However, then I found it absolutely absorbing. And so I had in total about five years at McKinsey, including a year at at business school in France. I think it was a far more marginal decision than you would think, looking at my career from the outside, to become an MP. It was a fifty five percent, forty five percent decision when I was at McKinsey to leave there and become an MP in my late twenties.

Presenter11:26

So what made you then quit McKinsey and go because the seat came up, Leon Britton went to to Europe, yeah?

Rt Hon William Hague MP11:32

Two things. First of all, it was a constituency I'd always wanted to represent, Richmond in Yorkshire. And because I'd always originally wanted to be an MP, that initial ambition resurfaced, and I thought you can't let this go by.

Presenter11:48

So you're back on target. You were twenty eight and I must say then, as everybody's said, it seemed to be an effortless rise. You were into the Cabinet six years later, youngest Cabinet Minister since Harold Wilson, I think. We're now in the mid nineties. Major government is in decline, sleaze and all the rest of it. Did you spot then that your time was coming, even though you were Secretary of State for Wells, which, as we know, is the bottom of the pecking order?

Rt Hon William Hague MP12:11

I thought it might be coming. I had mixed feelings about it. Uh I didn't particularly want to stand for the party leadership in my mid thirties, um but it depended, of course, what happened in the election. I thought there was the awful possibility that many of my senior colleagues would be wiped out, and indeed that is what happened. If they hadn't been, I wouldn't have been a candidate. But actually we lost a third of the Cabinet, and then I was I was persuaded to stand.

Presenter12:39

I want to ask you about that, but I'm going to pause for a little bit more music while we're talking about your being Secretary of State for Wales.

Rt Hon William Hague MP12:45

John Major astonished me when he asked me to be Secretary of State for Wales.

Rt Hon William Hague MP12:49

And I thought of poor John Redward not being able to sing the Welsh National Anthem, and the first thing I said to John Major was, I'd better learn the National Anthem.

Rt Hon William Hague MP12:56

And so I did, a few days later, from Fionn, then my private secretary, sitting on a churchyard wall, and it's the Welsh National Anthem sung by Bryn Turville and my het my Henlard van Haddai.

Speaker 413:11

I wanna

Presenter14:06

Bryn Turville singing Land of My Fathers with the Black Mountain Chorus, the Risker Male Choir, and the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera conducted by Gareth Jones. So you met Fionn that first day in the Welsh office. Did you know straight away was that it?

Rt Hon William Hague MP14:20

No, I knew she was a very nice person, straightway. I walked into the Welsh office and discovered my entire private office consisted of charming young ladies, and I thought I really have landed on my feet here. And Fion became a great friend. I think we'd known each other about a year before we started going out together, as you would say.

Speaker 114:38

As you would say.

Rt Hon William Hague MP14:39

And then for a while we had to keep our our very close friendship a secret uh so that it couldn't be strangled by media attention. But that was fun, anyway. And then we astonished everybody by announcing our engagement.

Presenter14:50

And then we've

Presenter14:52

But but it all came together at a very complicated time because as we were saying that the Tories then lost disastrously in nineteen ninety seven to New Labour, the leadership was up for grabs, you know, you were you were tucked in neatly under Michael Howard's wing, you were the sort of Gordon Brown to his Tony Blair, if you like, or you were going to be the shadow chancellor, weren't you? Then you have to make this enormous decision to come out from under.

Rt Hon William Hague MP15:16

Yes, and it was difficult, partly because I was about to get married. And I said to Fion

Presenter15:19

Mm-hmm.

Rt Hon William Hague MP15:21

We'll probably lose the election. We'll have more time. And we'll be able to get married and have a long honeymoon. And so that made it difficult to reverse that and and stand for the party leadership.

Presenter15:32

So what changed your mind?

Rt Hon William Hague MP15:32

So what

Rt Hon William Hague MP15:34

Partly a lot of other MPs asked me to do it.

Rt Hon William Hague MP15:37

And partly I think that same instinct came out that I mentioned when I decided to stand for Parliament.

Presenter15:43

But it was a fine calculation, wasn't it? And I wonder if looking I mean, you wouldn't be human, perhaps, if you didn't regret it. Do you think perhaps ambition triumphed over common sense?

Rt Hon William Hague MP15:53

No, I don't regret it at all. Even knowing everything that has s happened since, I don't regret it at all. I'm glad.

Presenter15:58

Even though people thought you were inconsistent, you did the dirty on Michael Howard.

Rt Hon William Hague MP16:02

I'm never troubled by what they thought. Michael Howard doesn't think that my relations with Michael Howard are excellent. I formed a view that that he wasn't going to win and that I should stand because I was going to win.

Presenter16:14

But we're obviously we're we're trying to apply wisdom of hindsight here, really. And and and I know that's difficult, but l it's summed up, if you like, by Lord Cranbourne, leader of the lords. I'm sure you've heard this quotation before. You went on to sack him, of course, didn't you?

Rt Hon William Hague MP16:18

Yeah.

Presenter16:27

But he said at the time, I fear we're about to enter a four-year-old horse for the Grand National, and we shall end up with a ruined horse.

Rt Hon William Hague MP16:33

Well, maybe that's right. And maybe Robert Cranbourne was was very accurate about that. However, it was important for that horse to run. And the horse enjoyed running as well. Life is too short to look over your shoulder every year and say, Oh, I don't think I should have done that.

Presenter16:43

Life is

Presenter16:46

Oh, I'd

Presenter16:47

But are you the best of you a ruined horse?

Presenter16:50

No.

Rt Hon William Hague MP16:51

I think Robert Cranbourne was uh overstating it there. So I I'll run a lot of races, albeit entirely different ones, in the future.

Presenter16:58

Record number four.

Rt Hon William Hague MP16:59

The next record I've chosen is from uh music that we played at our wedding. It's Mozart, it's Laudate Dominum, and it makes me think of that pretty wonderful day.

Presenter18:02

Kiritikanoa singing part of the Laudate Dominum from Mozart's Vesperae Salenes de Confisore, with the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Sir Colin Davis.

Presenter18:13

Um it's a pig of a job being leader of the opposition, isn't it, William?

Rt Hon William Hague MP18:17

It's quite difficult, but it has immense challenge and and there were so many things about it that I loved doing. Uh I hugely enjoyed debating in in Parliament. I hugely enjoyed fighting the the elections, uh the European elections of two years ago.

Presenter18:31

But obviously your your approach

Presenter18:34

was, I would have thought, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, that you were a young man with principles, with intellect. You thought that those virtues, if you like, would shine through in the end against what you would perceive as spin and lack of substance.

Rt Hon William Hague MP18:50

Yes, I did think that, or at least I hoped that. Perhaps I was too charitable about the world. I mean, politics is a rough business, and you know that when you go into it, and lots of people are going to have a go at you if you do.

Presenter19:03

But it was worse than that. You became what the least popular major party leader in history. And yet there you were, doing it all to the best of your ability. You must have been perplexed.

Rt Hon William Hague MP19:15

Well, certainly frustrated at times. Certainly frustrated. But I don't again have any regrets about that. I I think I did my best. And yes, sometimes it's difficult to get your message through.

Presenter19:25

But how did you explain it to yourself?

Rt Hon William Hague MP19:27

I think a large part of the reason for that is that many people had tuned out of politics in recent years. They turned out the government in 1997, the Conservative Government, and actually in their minds in this country they had elected a Labour government for longer than four years, and they were going to give it more than one chance. And so they were going to give that Government the benefit of the doubt on many things.

Presenter19:49

So there was nothing you could do, really.

Rt Hon William Hague MP19:51

Well, I'm not saying I did everything perfectly by any means, but I think that many people were not ready to hear a Conservative message, and that we were able to do some things, pull the party together, revamp its organization, but we weren't able to do everything in the time available.

Presenter20:05

And whatever you did, nothing seemed to happen. The polls didn't budge. It only seemed to get worse. And then you started getting trouble in your own camp. You got all sorts of accusations of back biting and conspiracy. Was there a time when you just thought, I just don't need any more of this?

Presenter20:22

You're laughing.

Rt Hon William Hague MP20:23

All politicians occasionally have a timeline, but usually it's only one day in a hundred. At the time, for instance, when I sacked Robert Cranbourne, which you referred to earlier, there was quite a crisis in the party. It could have destroyed my leadership then. But I pretty much had the view that I'd taken on the job for the Parliament. I wanted to see us through the general election at minimum.

Presenter20:44

Record number five.

Rt Hon William Hague MP20:45

Well, this reminds me of living through those difficult times. I got a great fondness for jazz while I was party leader over the last four years. Both Theon and my great friend Seb Coe are tremendous jazz fans. And this is Scott Hamilton playing Black Velvet.

Presenter22:01

Scott Hamilton playing black velvet, which tells the story of of you keeping relaxed in politi jazz is what turns you off, as it were, slows you down, while judo on the other hand, your other recreation, focuses you up to some

Rt Hon William Hague MP22:13

Well, it's good to be focussed on something else. If you're not totally focussed mind and body on it, then you're flat on your back a few seconds later.

Presenter22:21

All of those things, of course, played into your image as a front line politician, and much was made of the judo and the baseball caps on the water rights and all the rest of it. How much do you think that your image was the problem?

Rt Hon William Hague MP22:37

I think it may have been a one factor. I think the much bigger factors are what we discussed earlier, the m the major political forces at work. But certainly I had a problem getting people to see what I was really like. Because the uh modern media are image obsessed, they think that everything you do yourself is about your image. So it's quite hard to persuade them these are things you do anyway. You know, so when I took up Judo they said he's trying to show he's a hard man. Well it's nothing to do with that. I like doing it and I'm still doing it now and I have no need to show that I'm a hard man. Or when I got married it was meant to be to do with image. Well no actually I'd met the person I wanted to get married to. So it's quite hard to persuade people of that.

Presenter23:15

But I'm thinking when I ask you that question about Neil Kinnock who is now, for example, admitting that he was just not perceived as being electable as a Prime Minister. People couldn't see him as it. Something to do with I don't know, he danced in public once too often with his wife, usually actually. He's now saying I could not be Prime Minister. They did not want me. And I wonder if people felt the same about you?

Rt Hon William Hague MP23:40

That may well be right, and and that is why I said in my speech of resignation the morning after the election that the party had to have the opportunity to find a leader who who might be able to get a wider popular appeal in the country. So that was a factor in my resignation. You know, maybe Neil Kinnock should have done that after he lost his first election.

Presenter23:59

But you did, if you like, what Tony Blair did, you imported a a tabloid person to be your communications director. I mean, I wonder again, do you look back and think

Presenter24:09

I should have stayed being myself. Weren't you seduced into going for some pretty glib tabloid headlines?

Rt Hon William Hague MP24:16

No, the main advice of of the people who worked for me was to be myself. That is what they were trying to achieve. The the awful thing though that you see is that you have to actually consciously work out how you're going to present yourself as you really are. So that's how it works.

Presenter24:30

So it's usually the electorate who are at fault, is it? We are so image conscious. You'd have done better if you were standing in the nineteen seventies when you were sixteen than last year, wouldn't you?

Rt Hon William Hague MP24:41

Probably would have done much better in the eighteen seventies or seventeen seventies actually.

Rt Hon William Hague MP24:46

But however, you know, that opportunity was not available. So you're broadly right. However, we have to cope with that, and uh I wish we'd been able to do it better, but that was not a problem.

Presenter24:56

And as someone says, your virtues don't shine in this ecology.

Rt Hon William Hague MP25:00

Maybe that's right.

Presenter25:02

I could number six.

Rt Hon William Hague MP25:03

Record number six is another piece of of jazz. Um I'm obviously being interested now in playing the piano, jazz piano is something I particularly enjoy. Gene Harris and the Sidewinder.

Presenter26:14

Gene Harris and the Sidewinder. If the second shattering defeat wasn't your entirely your personal fault, as we've just been talking, it has also to be partly the fault of your policies, doesn't it? Save the pound was was the biggest idea. Do you think the policies were wrong and that you weren't listening enough?

Rt Hon William Hague MP26:33

No, I think the policies were right. You know, for instance, people say you should have talked more about health and education in the election. Now actually, the voters were going to give Labour the benefit of the doubt on health and education at the last election. Almost whatever we said. However, if they have not delivered on their promises by the time of the next election, there is a much bigger opportunity for the Conservative Party to present its case.

Presenter26:57

Sure.

Presenter26:58

But how can you say that that save the pound was the right policy when it obviously failed to have any resonance with the with the people at all? You know, it you completely failed, as we say, to make any inroads, you know, net gain of one seat.

Rt Hon William Hague MP27:10

Two points to make on that. First of all, we don't know what the result of the election would have been had I not campaigned on some of the things that I was criticised for campaigning on. It was possible for the Conservative Party not only to fail to do better, but to do worse. And the second point is that politicians should campaign to some extent on things they think are right. Maybe that's I'm being over-idealistic in thinking that. But I think this is a very important issue.

Presenter27:34

But are you saying that policy is more important than winning power?

Rt Hon William Hague MP27:40

I think it's important if you win power to be committed to policies that you really believe in and think are important.

Presenter27:48

But if the policies you believe in don't win you power.

Rt Hon William Hague MP27:48

But if the

Rt Hon William Hague MP27:52

Well, then I don't think you should change your belief to the opposite in order to win power. That is not why I came into politics. I am motivated by convictions, and I am not going to say the opposite of what I believe.

Speaker 127:59

Ammo

Rt Hon William Hague MP28:05

In order to win elections?

Presenter28:06

No, but there's a compromise, isn't there? And it seems to me that that's why the Euro is such a good example. It's a high-risk strategy, because it's a very black and white thing. You know, you're either for it or you're against it. And you said, you know, you would never, and Ian Duncan Smith is saying he will never go into the Euro. It's very, very high risk, that, you know, not just for you, for the whole party. And that's what's now the issue, isn't it?

Rt Hon William Hague MP28:27

Well, I I mustn't speak for him, but I I think he's set about taking over my old job with very good judgment. I think he's a man of cool judgment, of immense integrity. And I think that's the thing.

Presenter28:40

But he's moved the party even further to the right than you were, and therefore, you know, it's going to have even less resonance with the nation.

Rt Hon William Hague MP28:44

And that

Rt Hon William Hague MP28:48

Well, I think I think he's full of common sense and policies, and I think he will have a much greater chance of success at the next election than we ever really had at the last election.

Presenter28:59

Peculi number seven.

Rt Hon William Hague MP29:01

Record number seven makes me think of the place I go to with with Fionn on holiday more than anywhere else, uh the mountains of Montana in the northwestern United States. This is a song sung by Walking Jim Stoltz, who will not be known in this country, but who I listen to every winter when I'm out there skiing, and it's about the scenery out there, and it's called The Great Divide.

Speaker 429:24

All along the Great Divide, well a man can understand what it means to be alive all along the Great Divide.

Speaker 429:41

Wherever hawk on the wane Rises warning from the sky, Stay and find yourself a stare at Intil the charismas alone surmise.

Speaker 129:44

I just

Presenter29:53

Walking Jim and all along the Great Divide, um for a walking William Hague, who I gather even spends Christmas up a mountain, as I

Rt Hon William Hague MP30:01

Yes, we go walking in the Dales on Christmas Day and then we usually go off to Montana and we do some cross country skiing.

Rt Hon William Hague MP30:07

Which is great exercise and beautiful scenery and beautiful cold crisp air.

Presenter30:13

You're obviously, William, unfazed, it seems to me, from everything you say, and I don't think this is you trying to put an image forward you are unfazed in many ways by all these these changing events. Would people who know you corroborate that?

Rt Hon William Hague MP30:27

Yes, I think so. I enjoy life tremendously. I've got many other interests. The ups and downs of politics happen to any politician. I I remember saying to Fion,

Rt Hon William Hague MP30:36

When I became leader of the party, this is a roller coaster, and don't ever get on a roller coaster thinking it's only going to go up. And my enjoyment of politics is rarely correlated with success in it. You know, I often enjoy myself tremendously in adversity, and sometimes the most tedious problems to sort out are when you're meant to be doing well.

Speaker 130:43

Yeah.

Presenter30:54

What about the major discontinuity, to quote your phrase, that we're offering here, life on a desert island? How would you cope with that?

Rt Hon William Hague MP31:02

Well, I certainly miss a lot of thi I certainly miss Fionn. There's no doubt about that. Maybe she could come and rescue me after a while. But I'm coping well, I think, with a major discontinuity in life now. I'm not exactly on a desert island. Some people might think I am politically. But I don't feel like that personally. I'm enjoying learning the piano, doing more judo, having more time at home in Yorkshire, having more time with Fionn. I'm there and some new business interests that I've started. I've got so many other interests in life. And I am enjoying that.

Presenter31:33

But you've got to have a big ambition. I mean, for a man who, as we say, rose so quickly and so well, and obviously a man of great talent.

Presenter31:42

Would you have another shot at being Prime Minister?

Rt Hon William Hague MP31:45

Oh, I'm certainly not planning to do that. In a way, I've got that out of the system now. Yes, I've always been an ambitious person, but the the ambition has now passed through the system. You know, I've done that and been there. I've been leader of the party. I've got that T-shirt to the extent that's uh what it was. And so any decision I ever make in the future about uh about what I do in politics can be determined entirely dispassionately. And I'm certainly not going to hurry any of that. I'm cert I certainly wouldn't serve on the front bench in this Parliament, uh for instance. I am enjoying having a change. I enjoy being leader of the party, but I'm enjoying not being leader of the party.

Presenter32:21

But I think it's a good idea.

Presenter32:24

In the next one, you might serve.

Rt Hon William Hague MP32:26

You can't see forever into the future. I would always take a lot of persuading to go back to any form of front line politics. Um I'm not I'm not looking for

Rt Hon William Hague MP32:37

Some great new purpose in life.

Presenter32:40

You really are living your life backwards, aren't you?

Rt Hon William Hague MP32:43

Yes, I am. I really am getting younger as I've got older and I I enjoy sport more, I enjoy music more. In a way I have more pure fun than I've had for for many years, maybe for twenty years.

Presenter32:53

Last record.

Rt Hon William Hague MP32:54

The last record rather sums up that attitude. It it's what Fionn says is the record that that that sums me up, and it's Frank Sinatra singing That's Laugh.

Speaker 433:04

That's live.

Speaker 433:08

That's what all the people say.

Speaker 433:12

You're riding high in April.

Speaker 433:15

Shut down in May.

Speaker 433:18

But I know I'm gonna change that tune.

Speaker 433:24

When I'm back on top

Speaker 433:26

Back on top in June

Speaker 433:29

I said that's life.

Presenter33:32

Bank sonata and that's life. So, William, if you could only take one of those eight records, which one would you take?

Rt Hon William Hague MP33:39

I think I'd take Nimrod.

Presenter33:40

What about your book? You've got the Bible and uh you've got the complete works of Shakespeare.

Rt Hon William Hague MP33:45

Well, I'd take a book by a man called Robert Carrow, who has written two brilliant volumes on the life of Lyndon Johnson, and wrote the most exciting account of an election I've ever read in my life. It's an account of the Texas Senate race in nineteen forty eight, and it's beautifully written, as well as being hugely exciting.

Presenter34:04

And your luxury.

Rt Hon William Hague MP34:06

My luxury would be quite difficult to arrange, but you're very kind, and I would have a dojo, which is where a place where martial arts can be practised.

Presenter34:15

What is it a is it a ring or a building or a mat? What is it?

Rt Hon William Hague MP34:19

Well, I suppose it would have to be open air in this case. It it normally is a place with a sprung floor uh with uh with a mat on top of that and over quite a large area. But we could have it open air on a desert island.

Presenter34:31

William Hague, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Rt Hon William Hague MP34:35

Thank you very much indeed. It has been a great pleasure.

Speaker 134:44

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