Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP

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

Presenter0:23

My Costaway this week is a politician. He entered Parliament ten years ago, inheriting his seat from that distinguished Tory bruiser, Norman Tebbit. Less forceful in tone, but similar in his views of Europe, he became a backbench rebel.

Presenter0:36

This role undoubtedly helped him to win a place in William Hague's shadow cabinet, and when his party, two elections and two leaders down, needed some one else in charge, it chose him.

Presenter0:46

So the quiet man, son of a fearless fighter pilot and a ballerina who'd originally chosen the army and the defence industry as a career, took on the mantle of Peel, Disraeli, Shaftesbury, Churchill, and Thatcher. I'm passionate about my politics, he says. I set a course and I stick to it, and I will not be shaken off it. He is the leader of Her Majesty's opposition, Ian Duncan Smith. It was certainly a an unpredictable rise to the top, Ian. I mean, you hadn't, like your immediate predecessor, stood on the steps of number ten and said, I want to be Prime Minister, had you?

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP1:14

The

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP1:19

No, I I hadn't. Um I I came to politics rather late, actually. I I have to say as a young man I wasn't uh completely obsessed with politics. I was interested in it, and I'd chosen a a different course, and it was later on that I decided to go into politics.

Presenter1:30

But how surprised were you, you know, just over a year ago, to find yourself lead?

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP1:35

I went away uh after William had decided to step down that morning. I waited to talk to him, uh to try and you know persuade him that maybe he could go on. And I went away and the first thing I did was I sat down with my wife and I said, uh I guess I have to make a decision. Do I go for this or do I simply say I'll just wait and see whoever gets it? And it was really at that moment saying, W could I live with myself if I had not thrown my hat in the ring and said I do believe that I can take this party in the right direction and make sure that we get elected.

Presenter2:03

What were the qualities that you felt you had that made you think you could do it and should stand?

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP2:08

Well, I've been in tough situations. I've seen a certain amount of hardship and certainly moments when leadership has to be exercised. And I don't mean to be arrogant at all, but I just felt that I've got that experience, and I think that was what was necessary. I think the key thing for the party most of all was to get for itself a clear sense of direction, get that course that it must steer, and then stick to it. The problem has been that we've been buffeted, knocked off, and changed direction, and I felt that we now needed really to set the course and just go through.

Presenter2:38

You you talk a lot about leadership. I mean, every time one sees a a quote from you, particularly in the rough times, and you've had some rough times recently, you you're saying, I am the leader, I was elected leader, I am the leader, this is what I've decided to do. I wonder how much that is informed by your father, who talked to you a lot, I think, about his kind of leadership.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP2:45

Yeah.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP2:55

Uh

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP2:56

Hugely, uh, in a sense. We're all uh influenced by our parents, and the more you love them, the more you're influenced by them. And his sort of leadership was calm.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP3:06

Measured and invariably determined. I mean, the one thing I got from him was that when my father said that he was going to do something, you knew pretty well that he was going to do it.

Presenter3:14

A fusser is a liability, he said, didn't he?

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP3:17

He just didn't believe in that sort of thing.

Presenter3:18

Is that where the Kwatman philosophy comes from?

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP3:21

You must make your mind up, and when you make your mind up, you must stick to it, and you must back your judgment.

Presenter3:26

So you stick to your guns and the and the metaphors are often m military of one kind or another, aren't?

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP3:31

Politics and the military run parallel. The difference is nobody dies in politics, but you know, the same sense of uh slowing down the advance of a government uh and then being able to counter attack them, take them when they're unawares. All of these things are very military concepts, but they're also political concepts too, because we do deal in those sort of things.

Presenter3:48

Having said all of that, what is interesting is your father completely disapproved of politicians, didn't he? He thought they were a gutless lot.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP3:53

Yeah.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP3:55

Well, we have to go back and look at the generation that he was from. That generation felt deeply let down by politicians. I mean, a large number of his friends died because he felt that politicians hadn't faced up to the challenge early. He, however, intriguingly put Churchill in a different category, as many of them did. His feeling was that Churchill had risen above politics and that had been the man who had been warning. And so Churchill was not a politician in the sense that most others were.

Presenter4:18

Mm.

Presenter4:21

He was a statesman. But did you have to defy him when you decided to go into politics and he was still around then?

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP4:22

But did you have

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP4:26

I would be a a liar if I was to say that he wasn't disappointed by the idea of me entering into politics. Not in a in a bad sense. His ju his view was that the people that did things were the people that either worked or, you know, were in the army or

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP4:41

went into difficult situations and led. H his view about politicians generally was that there was too much mess and compromise.

Presenter4:47

Tell me about your first record.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP4:49

Well, Swan Lake, really. Um I know that it's one of those that most people know everything about and have heard it so many times it's almost become hackneyed. But my mother, her early years, were in ballet. She danced for the Anglo-Polish. She went on tour during the war to dance for the troops. And it was there in Naples, dancing at the Royal Opera House, that afterwards she met my father, who at that time was just having some time off, as it were, from the war, at the late stages of the war. So it it it reminds me of my mother, her phenomenal strength, um and uh just their meeting, really, I suppose.

Speaker 45:52

Uh

Presenter6:21

Part of the final act of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, played by the National Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Richard Bonning, and to remind you, Ian Duncan Smith, on your island, of your mother, who was a ballerina when she met your father. She, I mean, you do have really quite a glamorous background for, if I may say so, a quiet man. She, I think, has some Japanese in her background.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP6:41

Yes, my great grandmother was Japanese and she married met and married my great grandfather. He left Ireland and he ended up captaining, I think, the King of Siam's yacht for a while. It's a classic nineteenth century idea where they roamed all over the world just

Presenter6:53

Yeah.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP6:56

And it's not a good idea.

Presenter6:58

And he was a wild womanizer, I read.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP7:00

Well, um that's what we read, although I have to say I hadn't read that anywhere else. But I do gather, however, that he he enjoyed himself. And then he settled down in China, and that's where he met my great grandmother.

Presenter7:07

And then he said

Presenter7:10

And your your father was propositioned by Marilyn Munro, this is true.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP7:14

Absolutely correct, although um uh sometimes you never know these things until you read them. But uh he was out in America at uh one stage on secondment uh to the US Air Force in the early fifties and uh I'm told that nothing happened, but then my my mother tells me so I'm not quite certain. Well it was before her time.

Presenter7:30

Well, it was before her time.

Presenter7:33

But it does sound as if he was larger than life, a great charmer. He was a tea planter. He was, as we say, a flying ace, a golf champion, a a pianist. People will be thinking, Well, where are the jeans then?'Cause you're such a quiet chap.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP7:45

Well, I'm I'm not that quiet. The the point about uh the quiet man point was that it was really about the resolution. I think the important thing that I was trying to get across is that if I say I intend to do something, then I'll do it, and that's very much something that I did get.

Presenter7:57

Depends on the

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP7:59

Yeah.

Presenter7:59

But it's it's just this this larger than lifeness in your background, that's all one's bound to ask if you have such a a rich genetic tapestry.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP7:59

But it it's just this

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP8:02

If you have

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP8:05

Well, I don't claim to be my father. I claim to have enjoyed watching my father and hearing the stories about him. He certainly enjoyed parties. There was no question about that.

Presenter8:14

And there's a story I think he told you about his dog Prang, which may be standing you in good stead at the moment.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP8:20

My father was a dog lover. The story about the Bull Terrier was simply a story about how the the hunt had come across uh where he was in India and he was walking his dog and um the hounds all came charging across to where his dog was and most dogs would have broken and run and probably would have not seen the next day, but um being a typical bull terrier it didn't. It just simply turned, stopped, faced the hunt and the hounds broke around it and it didn't move a muscle, but the hounds didn't dare move on it. It was just determined that uh whatever happens, nothing was going to move it.

Presenter8:50

And the moral holds true, hm.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP8:52

Well, I think it holds true for everybody, which is, you know, just running away from things doesn't always work. You have to face up to your problems and your difficulties and uh quite often even it's been said time and time again when you do, they don't appear quite so big as they perhaps did at the beginning.

Presenter9:06

Makeup number two.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP9:07

Well this is um from Mozart's Requiem, the Benedictus, because we played it at my father's memorial service and the reason we played it was the tunefulness of Mozart was something that he always loved and the way that the voices just twine together and and go up and up and up uh it just gave me a a memory of his great days in the skies and so I thought it worked in both contexts.

Presenter10:28

Part of the Benedictus from Mozart's Requiem, played by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Colin Davis.

Presenter10:34

Um your childhood, Ian, was pretty four square, middle class, middle of the twentieth century, with an off to boarding school at thirteen, good at sport, okay at the academic stuff. Eight O levels, three A levels?

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP10:46

Yeah, that's right.

Presenter10:47

And then off to Europe for a kind of statutory bit of rebellion. And th the the the most interesting thing I read about here is that that there you were in Perugia, Italy, with hair.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP10:51

Most interesting thing I reckon.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP10:57

Well, just like everything else, for most of my school life in those days everybody did. We all had to keep our hair short and uh of course as you know in the seventies, late sixties and seventies there was explosion of sort of rebellion and one of the things to do was to grow your hair long, which was uh caused huge rows of course at home. But um as soon as I got away from school that's the first thing that almost everybody did.

Presenter11:18

How long?

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP11:18

Pretty long down on my shoulders. But then when I was in Perugia, it was a complete new world for me. I'd never been.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP11:26

I've never seen anything like this.

Presenter11:27

19 and on the loose. Sleeping in the back of cars, I got living in the back of cars.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP11:29

Sweet

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP11:31

Living in the back of the car. Yes, that was later on when I went to get a job down at the coast to make sure my Italian was better during the summer. I, you know, classically as young people do, I didn't actually arrange any accommodation. And so I used to get accommodation where I could. And on a few occasions, a friend used to lend me his Fiared 500, and I'd drive around to the edge of the harbour and just sleep in the back seat, wash under the tap. It was great. There were great days of abandonment.

Presenter11:55

But but then back here to Sandhurst, that must have been quite a culture shock after, you know, the the bearded uh rough living of it.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP12:02

It was my choice though, because I um I wanted to do something where I could get a bit of um you know, real excitement and a sense of doing something and uh it having thought about it long and hard, I thought it would be great to come back and and and serve in the army, so I chose that.

Presenter12:15

You commissioned into the Scots Guards, you saw active service in Northern Ireland and then went out to um later on to Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, where you were A D C to Major General Sir John Ackland, overseeing the monitoring force.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP12:27

Yeah.

Presenter12:29

leading up to the democr first democratic elections which brought in McGarvey.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP12:31

And so he brought in the

Presenter12:33

Apparently, you've identified this as the point at which you decided politics were for you. How so, why?

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP12:39

Well, it was the first time I'd really come face to face with the effect of politics. I know that sounds strange, but we know we read about it, we watch it on the television. But then suddenly you're in and you see the negotiations as we did at Lancaster House. I realised that they directly affected me because we had to wait. Then we were shipped out on an aircraft literally at the sort of dead of night. We couldn't fly over Africa because we had no overflight rights because the agreement hadn't been signed. We had to come in via the Azores. We spiralled down into what was then Salisbury. It was all very, very immediate. And then I watched the negotiations even whilst we were in what is now Zimbabwe, then Rhodesia, trying to keep the ceasefire going when there were huge reasons and huge tensions growing round it. And on two occasions, literally within minutes, it could have exploded and we'd have lost lots of lives. And I saw people showing great bravery and dedication to making this happen. And it was during that period that I realized, actually, politics really does matter.

Presenter13:33

That was nineteen eighty. Of course misses Thatcher had come to power here the year before. How much did that inform your thinking?

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP13:36

Yeah.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP13:39

I remember sitting around discussing with lots of other officers, you know, how depressed everybody felt about the state of things the year before, you know, that the strikes, the sort of level of pay, the inflation, we just felt deeply depressed but nobody thought that a politician could possibly solve this. We'd all very depressed about it. And watching her come in and then suddenly showing that there was a way in which things could change if there was clear leadership and a sense of determination and and that had a huge effect on me.

Presenter14:07

But it was to be another dozen years and some disappointments before you did get into the house. And in the meantime, you had a living to earn, which we'll talk about in a minute. But tell me about record number three first.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP14:14

I can do it.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP14:17

My sister, and I this will remind me very much of my brothers and sisters and our family life, but my sister who lives in Italy, sister Susan, she went out to Italy and was working with, I think it was RCA at that time, on a recording company, and she became involved in working with a group of brothers called Guido and Maurizio DeAngelis, who wrote for the films, music for the films, and they asked her to write some lyrics. And then later on they asked her to write some more, and she did, and then they asked her to sing on one of them, and then she sang, and then she found that her song went quite high up in the charts in France and Germany. And she did this on a few occasions. And this is one of her songs, and it reminds me of everything about my family and my sister.

Speaker 414:58

I hear my soul is music and waging the What can I say to you? Now you're gone and it's over

Speaker 415:11

Come on, feel my freedom come I watch you go for me, never said a word You'll teach me medicine Down the stairs I won't leave a hymn

Presenter15:20

One shall I do my life, and the only way I do.

Presenter15:25

The Blue Song recorded in the seventies by my castaway's sister, Susie Lyon. There's um one major experience in those working years before you became an MP, Ian, that I'd like to ask about, and that was being made redundant. How did it happen?

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP15:39

Well, I I left uh where I was working with GC to take up a job as a director of a property company that was specializing in in private houses at about the time that Nigel Lawson was putting interest rates up. And then finally one day I was the deputy managing director who said to me, I'm terribly sorry, but um you'll have to pack your bags and go. And I must say it has a huge shocking effect uh on you. You know, for a period you you feel as though, frankly, you failed. But this is where my wife was fantastic, really. We just set about

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP16:13

Getting back into work again and

Presenter16:15

And every morning after that you got up and you went out of the front door.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP16:18

I had a routine which was to check for job advertisements. I would write off, I would check the letters. I had a formed day uh as though I was going to work.

Presenter16:27

And you didn't tell your friends and neighbours what had happened?

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP16:29

It's very difficult. You know, you sort of go through a period where you hope you'll get this sorted out before anyone begins to know. And it's illogical, really, because people know. And so what you do is you begin to go through this charade, but very quickly realize there's no point. It's helped me, I think, since then to understand that when politicians say it's just a shakeout, it's not. It's people's whole lives, their ambitions, their hopes, it's their pride. It's all of that.

Presenter16:53

So you got another job, but then a couple of years later you were selected for Norman Tebbit's seat and you got into Parliament in in ninety two and and within a month you were committing that cardinal Tory sin. You were rebelling over mastery.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP16:59

Yeah.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP17:04

Mastery.

Presenter17:05

That's come back to haunt you as well, hasn't it?

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP17:07

Well, it's never going to leave me in the sense that, you know, anybody who's ever done that, Macmillan, Churchill, I mean, people have rebelled in the past uh and done so for clear and obvious reasons. I don't resile from it at all. I I I would uh rather I hadn't had to do it than I felt I did and uh I think at the time I was right.

Presenter17:23

Didn't you therefore feel hypocritical when you were criticising your own backbenchers earlier this month when they rebuked?

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP17:28

No, not really. I wasn't actually criticising people and I never would do, anybody who has a real principle. I think that's what politics is about.

Presenter17:35

What I'm asking you really is, wasn't it a misjudgment to put a three-line whip on something that was essentially a matter of conscience?

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP17:43

Didn't you

Presenter17:44

Didn't your whips tell you it wouldn't work?

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP17:46

So we we'll discuss this at length. You know, we can uh we can go over things again and again and decide whether you're right or wrong. Uh I stick by the decision I made at the time. Uh I believe it was the right decision to make, um and we'll just have to move on from there.

Presenter17:59

Or was it an ambush? Would it have happened anyway? Were there people waiting there to find this moment when they could actually undermine your authority? Because that's what happened.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP18:07

Well, my concern only was that we recognize that we as a party can't indulge ourselves any longer in the ins and outs of the Conservative Party. My point is we have now to take a self-denying ordinance and focus all of us and learn from this experience.

Presenter18:19

All of it.

Presenter18:22

Certainly. But do you think it was an ambush? Do you think it was the dark forces?

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP18:25

No, I I said at the time that uh people have to examine their reasons for doing things, and uh if they had any other reason other than principle, then I simply say to them, Look, it's time to put all those on one side and get on now with the purpose of what we exist for, which is to be in opposition at the moment, to build back towards government.

Presenter18:41

Record number four.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP18:41

This is uh from Madame Butterfly and uh partly the reason is because I'm very fond of opera. Uh I love it and I love going to see it and I don't see it very much these uh days or listen to it. This one particularly has uh fine memories for me. It reminds me a little bit of the period when I was out of work because uh I used to listen a lot to this and other opera. Um it also a little bit reminder of my my past and my family background.

Speaker 419:14

On the fall.

Speaker 419:27

Why is more

Speaker 419:44

White bars.

Presenter20:02

Cheryl Barker singing One Fine Day from Puccini's Madam Butterfly with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Eve Arbell.

Presenter20:09

You obviously seriously rattled Iain Duncan Smith when you did your Unite or Die speech the day after the rebellion. Shades of your father again one felt, you know, come down on them hard when they rebel and then you can go forward and you can lead them properly.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP20:23

I I wasn't rattled at all. What I did was uh very measured in the sense I knew what I was saying and uh I meant it. And I think the party has remarkably taken the message and I think we're actually moving forward, which is uh very high.

Presenter20:36

But the Tory party is dying, isn't it? I think that isn't that exactly what the polls are showing. You're still trailing a miserable fourteen points behind.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP20:44

Not true, you know what I'm saying?

Presenter20:45

True.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP20:47

Well, no, I mean I I see all the fun.

Presenter20:48

So focus groups tell us something different.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP20:50

No, I see all the polls. And the truth is that, you know, we can focus on one poll at one time. The fact is when I took over, we were eighteen points behind Labour. A week before the conference, before the Edwina Currie saga, we were actually only five points behind Labour. So the reality is

Presenter21:04

Do you blame the Edwina Courage on major things?

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP21:06

No, I don't blame anything. I simply say that what we don't need uh is reminders of the things that the public disliked about us when they decided they didn't want us in power in ninety seven.

Presenter21:14

But isn't the truth that that uh your problem is the Tory party is two parties and you've got the you know the the main the the MPs in the House, the Parliamentary Party, who in fact elected Kenneth Clark as their leader, and then you've got the party out in the country who elected you, and that's your problem. You can't you can't unite the two.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP21:31

We elected one leader, the whole of the party, including the parliamentary party. The issue for us is very simply: how do we take on this government and how do we show the public that there is a real need for an alternative? And for the most part, what we find is that the public is not really that interested in politics right now, so they're not paying massive amounts of attention. But I think, as we're seeing problems of the farm and strike and others, that they are rapidly coming to the conclusion that there are serious difficulties with the government. So it is our opportunity now to lay out the alternative. But we also need to have that message getting through, not other messages, and that's the key thing for the party to do.

Presenter22:04

But a lot of the people that you would wish to count among your voters would say that they feel disenfranchised. That is their problem. That they feel that it's far too out of touch, stern, uptight, they don't like it or want something a bit more modern.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP22:11

Yeah.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP22:12

They feel that

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP22:18

I couldn't agree with you.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP22:20

I agree, and that is exactly what we've been doing with the party, and it takes a little time for that to sort itself out.

Presenter22:25

There is a view that the Tory party is facing its greatest crisis ever, the biggest crisis in its history, and that's true, isn't it? And big parties can die, as did the Liberal Party.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP22:32

Good.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP22:34

Oh no, I think the Conservative Party has been facing crises all its political life. But the thing about the Conservative Party, which is why it survives and goes on to regain power, is that we are a party that recognise that change is part of who we are. You know, Disraeli, Churchill, Thatcher, you know, these are all leaders that took forward the party and changed the image of the party as it was. But it takes a little time, but we're going to get there. And it also needs the government to be seen as failing, which I believe they are now.

Presenter22:58

They are also

Presenter23:01

I want to ask you about the tactic and the thinking behind that, but let's pause for some more music. Number five.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP23:06

This song, She is for my wife, Betsy, because um I think anyone listening to it who is close to somebody will recognise that uh most of the words, the lyrics here, have huge meaning and they are very much about my life with Betsy, so it's for her.

Speaker 423:21

He may be the face I can't forget, A trace of pleasure or regret.

Speaker 423:30

Maybe my treasure or the price I have to pay.

Speaker 423:37

She may be the song that's gonna sing.

Speaker 423:42

Maybe the chill that autumn brings

Speaker 423:45

Maybe a hundred different things.

Presenter23:48

Uh

Speaker 423:48

Within the measure

Presenter23:51

Charles Aznavor singing she. So what's the tactic Ian? We all know that uh oppositions don't win elections, it's governments who lose them, and this this one doesn't look like grinding to a halt, it does it?

Speaker 423:51

Yeah.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP24:01

No, and I think this has been the big problem for us, is that what the government pulled off superficially was that you could have both, it appeared, a conservative approach to the economy, but also you could satisfy your social conscience because the government was saying they would do all these things for those who are in difficulty. And my point is it takes time before the public begins to realize that doesn't work. Then, as it begins to unravel, you're there as the alternative. And I think we've reached that stage now. So you'll see over the next few months a serious beginning of change in the attitude towards the government.

Presenter24:24

Where is the alternative?

Presenter24:32

I mean, William Hague said a lot of this kind of stuff, and in the end, it proved not to be true. I mean, you have to say it is the point, and you have to believe it.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP24:36

You have f

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP24:39

But I do believe it, because look, the trouble for William quite rightly was, four years in, the public said, we don't much like them, but the benefit of the doubt, they've only been in four years. The other lot we're in longer. Let's see if they can get it right in the second term.

Presenter24:52

So you think the time is better for you now?

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP24:53

We're into the second term, and now it's about delivery. If they don't deliver, I think the public needs to know there's an alternative.

Presenter24:59

But if it turns out to be you and not the party that is the problem and not the policies that are the problem, and if a group of twenty five suits come along to see you, which, as you know, they can do under your rules, and say, Ian, sorry, old chap, it isn't working, you haven't made any impact, we'd like you to go, would you walk?

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP25:16

I'm not walking anywhere. I tell you exactly what's going to happen. We're going to do exactly what I said, which is focus on the government's failures. Sure. We're going to bring forward the next election, winner.

Presenter25:22

We're going to bring it back. But if they came for the next election, wouldn't it? If they came, would you walk?

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP25:27

And they might not come, so hypothetical questions, if you don't mind saying so, are impossible to answer. It is absolutely my determination and I see things through. I'm going to take this party to the next election. We're going to show that the government has got too much wrong for people to ignore and that there's a real alternative. And at that point, I believe the public will say it's time for a change.

Presenter25:48

It's a pretty terrible position to be in though, isn't it? You must be looking over your shoulder the whole time just to see who's in the middle of the morning.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP25:53

So you may look back and remember previous opposition leaders, Mrs. Thatcher, who spent her whole time.

Presenter25:59

But they came for her, they got her in the end.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP26:01

Oh yes, but it took them a long, long time. And the reality is that opposition leaders face the same challenges. The challenge is that you have to build with very little. You have to take on a government that has thousands of civil servants. But the key thing is, if you stay true, ultimately the public sees through all the sham and they will spot what is right from what is wrong.

Presenter26:21

Stand your ground like the dog praying on.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP26:24

Absolutely.

Presenter26:25

Record number six.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP26:26

Well, this is uh a Bruce Springsteen record for two reasons. One is that experience which I'm afraid has shaped all our lives uh the September eleventh tragedy. And the second thing was, two days later I became the leader of the Conservative Party. It also happens to be my wedding anniversary, September the eleventh, so a lot in there, but uh memories and also enjoyment.

Speaker 426:46

Was a black red circle.

Speaker 426:49

Cold Rock Wound

Speaker 426:53

Rain is falling down.

Speaker 426:59

The church does not open.

Speaker 427:02

I can do the orchestra

Speaker 427:05

The congregation's come.

Speaker 427:11

My city of ruin

Presenter27:15

My City of Ruins by Bruce Springsteen. In the meantime, Ian, there's that novel, Topless Women Emerging from the Sea, Bumping Into Our Hero on the Beach. It's a bonk-free political thriller, I read.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP27:22

Yeah.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP27:28

Well, it was really written for fun, to be honest with you. I don't by any means think that this is the great English novel. And so and lots of people s make rather pompous statements about it. It was just a novel written, actually started when I was unemployed. And I put it away and then later on I pulled it out and thought, Well, I wonder if I could make that work and rewrote it a few times and eventually I thought, Well, I might as well see if anybody would like to publish it and then I became the leader, so I put it away again, and then somebody came back and said they were interested in doing it.

Presenter27:55

But one wonders why, I have to say, uh thinking about it straightforwardly, one wonders why you've already got quite a lot of flack for it, you know, and people quoting rejection slips saying it's quite a bit.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP28:03

Oh gosh, anybody who's ever published a book or stood for election knows you get rejection all over the place. It's part of the process.

Presenter28:08

Please, it's part of the presentation. I didn't have much.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP28:10

I didn't have much option. No, it was long before I even got to the general election. I'd written to a few agents and said, I don't know, would you find this interesting or not?

Presenter28:20

So is it a way of trying to polish up your image a bit like William Hague and his baseball cap?

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP28:24

No, certainly not. I mean, actually the truth is that uh I really was in two minds about publishing that.

Presenter28:30

You have to be very thick-skinned, obviously. We know this. Um, I gather you don't read many newspapers because can't be bothered with that.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP28:31

Yeah.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP28:37

I read newspapers, but I don't spend my time dwelling on the comment about me, either good or bad. I saw one of the commentators change his opinion about me three times in the course of one week, and I said if I'd done that as a politician, I'd be called a hypocrite.

Presenter28:49

And you try to keep your children out of the limelight. You try to remain relatively private, don't you?

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP28:52

Yeah but

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP28:54

Yes, I think the one thing that worries me about this business over the last few years is it's got completely all consuming. There was a time, clearly, when people in my position uh could have a separate private life. Uh that's become very difficult. I recognized the pressures of that when I took this job on, although I have to say until you've done it you don't realize quite what it's like.

Presenter29:12

Thank you.

Presenter29:13

A bit of a shock, you know.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP29:14

Well, I think anybody, as William said to me, you've just nothing you've ever done in your life will prepare you for what is about to happen.

Presenter29:20

But Colin Powell's wife obviously spotted it, we gather, and asked him not to stand. I mean, did Betsy ever say to you, Are you sure?

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP29:24

Did Betsy ever say?

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP29:26

Well, that's the sort of discussion you have if you if you really want to balance what's best for your family. Somebody said to me, What's the gift that you can give your children?

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP29:35

is you have a choice and I said in this job anonymity

Presenter29:38

I don't understand that. What do you mean, give them anonymity?

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP29:40

Well, in other words, make sure that they don't go round having the finger pointed at and saying, Oh, I recognize that person, he is the son of. I'd rather them be able to make their way in the world without being seen as a person.

Presenter29:49

But that's impossible.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP29:50

I don't think it is. No, I don't think so. I think one of the problems is if you constantly have their faces splashed across the newspapers, et cetera, then it is impossible. But I think as long as you can keep the photographs away, then I think that's the the key point.

Presenter29:51

I don't think it is.

Presenter30:05

Backward number seven.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP30:06

Number seven is um Jerry Lillewis's Great Balls of Fire. The reason I got this is because it does remind me of my children for one major reason, which is that uh I had this tape in the car a long time ago and uh one of my children looking for another tape stuck it on and um it was on Great Balls of Fire and uh they all loved it and they started singing along to it and so it just reminds me of driving down the road with the car some swaying from one side to the other whilst everybody was engaged in singing Jerry Lee Lewis's Great Balls of Fire.

Speaker 430:37

You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain. Too much of love drives a man insane.

Speaker 430:43

You broke my wheel, the blood of free. Great balls of fire. I left it in love, but I thought it was funny. You came along and wooed my money.

Speaker 430:55

I've changed my mind. This world is fine.

Speaker 430:59

Balls of fire Kisses the baby

Presenter31:06

Jerry Lee Lewis and great balls of fire and survival. So casting away time in, I presume your father taught you some decent lessons in survival. He ditched over the sea a couple of times, didn't he? He did.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP31:14

He did, yeah, yeah. Um part of me uh uh really loves all the idea of being able to live off the off the land, as it were, and not have to sort of worry about going into supermarkets and buying your food. But uh

Presenter31:24

And knocking up the shelter and and fishing, all that.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP31:27

Oh yeah, no, no, I I enjoy all that and I and I like fishing anyway for pleasure, so

Presenter31:31

Uh

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP31:31

I'd certainly want to have strapped about me a fishing rod somewhere.

Presenter31:31

Oh.

Presenter31:33

What about your sanity? What about hanging on to your marbles?

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP31:37

No, I think um I'm I'm comfortable uh with my own company, and uh I think it's important that you have things to do. I think keep yourself busy is always important uh but make sure these are things that are productive rather than just fiddling around.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP31:52

Well, I don't know. You'll only know when you do it, but um yeah, I I I wouldn't look for it, but if I had to do it then I think uh I'd like to think that could survive.

Presenter32:00

So there isn't a part of you that would really quite like to go right now.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP32:03

Certainly not, no.

Presenter32:05

Record number eight.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP32:06

Well, this one is purely gratuitous, I mean in the sense that it's it's a song by Nina Simone. I'd love to have this just simply for the pleasure of indulging myself. I think she's got a voice which uh frankly does send shivers up down my spine every time I hear it.

Speaker 432:29

Baby?

Speaker 432:31

My baby don't care for shows

Speaker 432:34

And he don't even care for clothes.

Speaker 432:39

He cared

Speaker 432:40

Swimming game

Speaker 432:45

My baby don't care

Presenter32:49

Nina Simone and My Baby Just Cares for Me. Now, if you could only take one of those eight records, I suppose that's it, is it? If that's yours, that's the one you really want.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP32:56

That's the one you really want. This is the toughest choice. I'd be tempted to take this. I think, however, I would take the Benedictus for one reason, which is it is just so beautiful. Memories of my father. It also reminds me hugely of the way my mother looked after my father when he was dying. And that also had a life-changing moment for me when I realised just the power of love.

Presenter33:16

And your book. You've got the Bible, you've got the complete works of Shakespeare. What's the one you want to take?

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP33:21

I settled on the Alexandra Quartet violence durrel.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP33:24

Having read it some gosh twenty years ago, I just recall that it was just about the most complete book that I'd ever read. Every book challenges you, poses a surprise for you, so I could read it again and again and again and find things in it which I hadn't found before.

Presenter33:38

And your luxury.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP33:39

Paints. I I enjoy painting in oils and uh uh that would be a luxury for me and I'd certainly spend a lot of time doing the thing that I haven't been able to do for quite a long time.

Presenter33:48

Ian Duncan Smith, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP33:51

Social thinking.

Speaker 333:58

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