Rt Hon Michael Howard MP

Speaker 20:00

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 four, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:28

Mike Costaway this week is a politician. He's very clever. He plays the guitar, likes cats, football, and the Beatles, and has been married for thirty years to a beautiful ex-model, all of which you might think would make him a popular figure on the political scene. The truth is rather different. Born and brought up in Wales, the son of a Jewish Romanian immigrant, he went up to Cambridge and became President of the Union. But while his contemporaries sauntered into Parliament and then into office, his climb to the top took much longer. And even then, despite holding senior posts in government, his party seemed reluctant to accept him as its leader.

Presenter1:05

Eight months ago, everything changed. Demoralized, the party finally turned to the man who, despite his adversities, had stayed loyal and whose experience and stature they recognized they needed. I've always taken the view, he says, that other people can decide what you can do and what you can't do. He is Michael Howard. That must be a judgment, Michael, forged by experience rather than something that you've always worked on.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP1:33

No. I think it is one of the crucial things about political life. It's actually true that other people decide what you can do and what you can't do. It's true.

Presenter1:43

Well, it's true. But it almost makes you sound sort of passive, you know, less than ambitious.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP1:48

Well I d I'm not passive because I think what you've got to do is to do whatever job you're given uh as well as you can. And if you do that job to the best of your ability, others will then decide uh what should happen to you next. I mean I wasn't one of those people who when I was at Cambridge sort of sketched out a a career which ended up at Ten Downing Street. I think

Presenter2:08

The routes mapped to Downing Street.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP2:09

No, I didn't think you can plan it like that.

Presenter2:12

Well, I suppose it's a good job you felt like that really, isn't it? Because I mean in nineteen ninety seven when it didn't happen for you and you were rejected as the leader and came fifth out of five, you must have thought, well, that was it. You know, if there had been any route map, it was certainly torn up then.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP2:15

Okay.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP2:27

I did, but there wasn't a root map. Looking back on it, I think the party came to the right decision, probably. But at the time. Yes.

Presenter2:33

What at the time?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP2:35

It was probably a a good thing to sort of strike out in a in a completely new direction with someone who wasn't as closely associated with the previous Government as I was.

Presenter2:44

Certainly it would seem that the prize was never going to be yours. You were never going to become leader. And then suddenly, as I said just now, it all changed last November, and there you were anointed unopposed. How surprised were you?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP2:59

Yeah.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP3:00

I was uh astonished. It was not something I ever thought would happen, and if we'd been sitting here a year ago and you'd told me that I'd be sitting here today as leader of the Conservative Party, I'd have said that uh you were uh prone to fantasies.

Presenter3:14

But but are you suggesting that you never did anything to to square the other contenders behind the scenes, you know, Tim Yeo, David Davis, Ken Clark?

Presenter3:23

Yeah.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP3:24

No, I didn't square anybody after the vote which decided Ian's future had been taken. Obviously, during the week between that decision and th my election, I did talk to lots of people at that time. Not to square people, but um obviously a lot of conversations take place.

Presenter3:42

But someone must have been making the calculation. Somebody must have been saying, look, all stand down and let this man go forward.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP3:49

I really don't think it happened like that. I think the Conservative Party suddenly realized collectively that the strongest signal it could send to the country is that it was putting aside all the

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP3:58

The arguments and difficulties that we'd had for so many years was to avoid a contest and to agree on someone. But Ken Clark muttered about a right-wing coup, didn't he?

Presenter4:05

But can

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP4:08

Well, I did talk to Ken at that time and

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP4:12

He came to his own decision, as they all did. There was no there was no

Presenter4:17

What did you say? You said, look, mate, you're not going to get it because of the European thing. Let me run.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP4:18

Look, mate, you're not going to get it because of the European thing.

Presenter4:24

This is what we need in this moment.

Presenter4:26

I didn't say that to Ken. You try saying that to Ken.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP4:29

Mm. Tell me about your first record. Well, the first record is a Beatles record, and I could have filled the programme with eight Beatles records because I I adored their music. I was a very early fan. I still have a copy of their first album, which says on the sleeve The Beatles are the biggest thing to hit British show business since the shadows. And I've chosen All You Need Is Love because it's perhaps the sort of quintessential record of the sixties.

Speaker 35:11

Holding me, they just love

Speaker 35:16

All you need is love.

Speaker 35:20

All you need is love.

Speaker 35:23

Love

Speaker 35:25

Love is all you need.

Presenter5:27

Beatles, and all you need is love. I heard that as Home Secretary you had that kind of music blaring, you know, full blast in the ministerial car the whole time, is that right?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP5:36

Sometimes, not all the time, but yeah, there were times. It's great music.

Presenter5:40

I I also gather that you were enthralled to Elvis and that at some point in your boyhood you were the leader leader of a skiffle group.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP5:48

I did do a bit of guitar playing in a skiffle group. We were sort of Lonnie Donegan clones. Yes.

Presenter5:55

I thought you looked more like Buddy Holly with the square glasses on the side.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP5:57

Oh, well I was very keen on Buddy Holly too. Actually, now you mentioned that I feel very guilty. I haven't got a Buddy Holly record amongst my eight.

Presenter6:04

But, Michael, it has to be said that all of these details and the way in which you speak and present yourself here.

Presenter6:09

Bear witness to the fact that you're a paid up member of the human race. Why is it that that is not and or hasn't been anyway the public perception of you? The public perception has been, as you know, that you're ambitious, driven, less than caring. Why has there been such a gap? Why have you signally failed to transmit yourself?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP6:29

I'm not sure. I think probably a a lot of it has to do with my time as Home Secretary. Looking back on it, I'm very proud of what I achieved as Home Secretary, because we managed to cut crime very significantly, but it was a real hard slog. It involved taking on some of the most determined, entrenched lobbies in the business.

Presenter6:51

So you sacrifice.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP6:52

I mean it's full of controversy.

Presenter6:53

You sacrificed your personal image for that, do you think? Do you feel, looking back?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP6:57

I went into politics to do things, and you have to accept there will be times when you will be unpopular, but that is an a necessary thing to accept if you are actually going to make a difference.

Presenter7:10

In a sense, what you're asking the nation now to do is to accept a a public reinvention of yourself, rather as Michael Portillo has done. I mean, it's what's required by

Presenter7:21

the marketing that we now have in modern politics, isn't it?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP7:24

Do you know, I don't see it that way at all. I mean, I have changed. We all change as time goes on. We get older, we learn from our experiences. But I look back.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP7:35

to Margaret Thatcher, who was not always the most popular of people, but who, I think, achieved great things for this country and did so because she knew what she wanted for the country, she knew what she believed in and she stood up for what she believed.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP7:51

Right what number two.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP7:52

Record number two is the Morriston Orpheus Choir version of Kumronda. It is an absolutely wonderful hymn and I love shouting it out. And of course it reminds me of my boyhood in Wales. Morriston isn't very far from Planechley. And it's also, of course, the sound you hear on the terraces when Wales play rugby. And it's a great sound.

Speaker 38:19

We all pray.

Speaker 38:46

Yeah.

Speaker 38:50

We belong.

Presenter8:58

Come Rom the Bread of Heaven with the Morriston Orpheus Choir, led by Alwyn Humphreys, with the organist Alan Dregelis Williams and Joy Ammond Davis on the piano. Which takes us back to Wales, Michael Hard, to Klinethley, where you were born, sixty three years ago this week. Happy birthday.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP9:12

was born in Goth

Presenter9:13

Uh

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP9:13

Synum, which is a village between Flinfly and Swansea. And your parents ran shops? Yes, that's right.

Presenter9:14

I wait

Presenter9:21

What sort of shop?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP9:21

What's ladies' fashion shops?

Presenter9:23

And your mother had been brought there, I think, aged six months from Eastern Europe, but your father arrived a as a man in uh just before the war, didn't he?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP9:32

He didn't arrive in Steneshly before the war. He only arrived in Steneshly when he met and married my mother. He originally came to London to be a cantor in a synagogue.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP9:42

And that was why he he left.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP9:45

The place where he'd been born.

Presenter9:46

Which is this area of Romania we call Transylvania? I mean, do you think life had been tough? I think it was 1936, he came to the city.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP9:53

Yeah, that's right. He left in 1936 when he was 18.

Presenter9:56

So the fascist organizations, yes, would have been.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP9:59

There were clouds on the horizon.

Presenter9:59

Tiles on the horizon

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP10:02

Perhaps it hadn't started raining yet, but there were lots of clouds on the horizon, that's certainly true.

Presenter10:07

So he and he came alone, met and married your mother, as you say, and settled in Wales. What about the family he left behind? What happened to them?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP10:15

His mother, my grandmother, was killed in Auschwitz. His sister also went to Auschwitz, but actually survived and came and lived with us in Wales and indeed carried on living with us until she died.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP10:34

Um my uncle, his brother, was also in concentration camps, also survived, and happily is still alive.

Presenter10:41

So d did you talk to that aunt who lived with you about her experiences? What did she tell you about Auschwitz?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP10:47

She had an astonishing story to tell.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP10:51

She had actually been in a gas chamber three times.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP10:55

and had, for various reasons, once'cause they'd run out of gas, and on other occasions for different reasons, had had come out and lived to tell the tale.

Presenter11:08

Amazing, isn't it? What and what effect did that have on you when you listened to these things?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP11:14

Pretty, pretty harrowing.

Presenter11:16

And did all of that then serve to strengthen the family's Jewishness?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP11:24

I don't think it did, funnily enough. I mean, I I did I grew up in an Orthodox Jewish home, and so there was a great deal of Jewish consciousness in the home. But the Holocaust affected people in different ways. In some cases it made people want to want to forget the fact that they were Jewish altogether. In other cases, it strengthened it. I don't think in my aunt's case, which you're particularly asking me about, I don't think it had either of those effects.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP11:55

But it ruined her life, not surprisingly.

Presenter11:58

Your your father died actually, didn't he, when you were a a young man?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP12:03

He did, he died when I was twenty-five.

Presenter12:05

Did did he live the street?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP12:06

He was he was forty nine. He died of uh

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP12:09

Breast cancer, which is pretty unusual in a in a male.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP12:14

And he was a great influence on me and I miss him still.

Presenter12:19

Did he live to see you fight in election?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP12:21

He did just. I fought my first election, which

Presenter12:22

Yeah.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP12:26

was again completely unexpected when I was twenty four in March nineteen sixty six, the nineteen sixty six general election, and that was four months before he died.

Presenter12:37

Hm. I bet he was proud of that.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP12:39

He was.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP12:41

He thought and frequently said

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP12:44

That this is the best country in the world.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP12:48

And we were all privileged to be here and

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP12:52

We should always remember that.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP12:54

Which I certainly do.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP12:56

Equal number three.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP12:58

Record number three takes me back to those years in Wales and the early years of rock and roll, and there were lots of great records at that time, but again, I think the one that absolutely epitomises

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP13:12

The spirit of it all is Long Tall Sally by Little Richard.

Speaker 313:18

Gonna tell that Mary Bonaparte John. He claim he has a music, but he having a lot of fun. Oh baby!

Speaker 313:25

Yeah, baby, woo, baby, having this up one tonight.

Speaker 313:33

Yeah, well long toss saddle sheet, be the species guy, everything that Uncle John need, oh baby.

Speaker 313:41

Yeah, baby, oh baby, having it some mono night.

Presenter13:48

Little Witted and Long Tall Sally, which was in the charts when you were fifteen, Michael Hard. You went to Linethley Grammar School and then you got got yourself into Cambridge, really, didn't you? Because, I mean, it wasn't something that was necessarily encouraged. No, it wasn't.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP14:01

No, it wasn't. I think in fact it was regarded as rather presumptuous. My headmaster, I remember, tried hard to persuade me to go to Aberystwyth, but I wanted to have a go, and it didn't look as though I was going to make it. I tried several colleges, and Peterhouse, which eventually accepted me, was my last shot. I was obviously the first person from my family to go to any university. And yeah, that was that was a great moment.

Presenter14:24

And you'd sat in an entrance exam, I'm sure. You'd written an essay. What did you write about that?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP14:26

Sure.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP14:29

I wrote an essay entitled Why I Am an Angry Young Man.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP14:34

And what were you angry about? The sorts of things that a seventeen year old is angry about. I I was angry about hypocrisy. I don't think it was sort of incredibly radical politically.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP14:45

But you were a Tory, by the way. You were a Catholic.

Presenter14:48

Yes. And you went up to Kemp and then joined the pub?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP14:48

And you went up to Cambridge and then joined the party. Yeah, I didn't really do very much about it until I got to Cambridge. And then of course there were a whole lot of other people there who we were all there at the same time.

Presenter14:59

The Cambridge Mafia.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP15:00

The Cambridge Mafia. My exact contemporaries were Ken Clark and John Gummer. Norman Fowler was a year ahead of us. Leon Britton was, I think, two years ahead of us. Norman Lamont came a year or so later. At one time, I think there were four or five of us in the Cabinet at the same time.

Presenter15:20

But was it accepted then that you would all go in into the House of Commons? Did you sort of agree with each other that's essentially what you'd like to do?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP15:29

I think it was fairly clear that that was what we would like to do. I was never certain that I'd be able to do it. Perhaps some of the others were.

Presenter15:36

So would you describe those three years at Cambridge as as as you know, bringing about a great metamorphosis in the Michael Howard, the you know, the boy from Flenethley, possibly with the Welsh accent. I don't know, did you have a Welsh accent?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP15:47

Um yes, and I still do when I speak to my relatives in in Wales.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP15:53

It took a bit of time. I think it probably took most of my first year to to find my feet. But after that, yes, I had a ball. It was a sort of golden world.

Presenter16:00

Hmm.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP16:04

And I had a terrific time.

Presenter16:06

But after Cambridge you went to the States for a year and I mean, I just wanted to ask you about this. I gathered that you were tempted to stay there and take a job in Nashville.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP16:14

I was very interested in jazz when I was there and pop music as well. And I did have a friend who had a friend, so he said, who ran a radio station in Nashville, who said that they would love to have someone with an English accent do a stint as a disc jockey. And I must admit that the prospect of being a disc jockey in Nashville did have its attractions. But I knew that I wanted to come back and came back. Get on with real life. That's right.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP16:44

Record number four. Record number four is very much from the the time I spent in the States. I used to listen to a lot of jazz when I lived in New York, and I used to go to the Five Spot Cafe in Saint Mark's Square and listen to Felonious Monk.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP16:59

And Blue Monk is a great piece of music.

Presenter18:01

The Lonius Monk and Blue Monk live at the Five Spot and memories of your time in the States. You stood, Michael, as a young man in his mid and late twenties in two elections, 1966 and 1970, in a seat that you were never going to win, Edge Hill, Liverpool. There was not a hope in Edge Hill for you really, was there? So you hunkered down and got on with your career in the law. I read that you applied for forty four oh winnable constituencies during that time and failed to be selected until the fortieth. Is that right? So many?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP18:34

Uh I didn't keep count, but it's quite possible. When I came back from America for about five years or a bit more, I really rather neglected the bar.

Presenter18:45

But you kept trying to get connected these 40 times.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP18:46

I did. I thought m I thought that either what I'd done up to then would be enough to get me a seat, or it wouldn't. But I had to give the bar a fair crack of the whip. To be honest, I'd more or less reconciled myself to the fact that I that I wasn't ever going to get in.

Presenter19:03

But during that time, the Cambridge Mafia we talked about, the with the Gummer and Fowler and Britton and Clark and so on, all got in in in nineteen seventy, I think, or thereabouts, I think. You must have thought to yourself, you know, why not me?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP19:12

Yeah.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP19:19

Well, it is a very um sort of random process. But anyway, in the end it all happened.

Presenter19:24

It all happened, long struggle, seventeen years, and finally in nineteen eighty three you got in as as MP for Folkestone and High, then you were forty two years old. So how did it feel to get there at last?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP19:35

That was an election in which we had a very big majority.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP19:38

I think we had a hundred new Conservative members of parliament.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP19:43

And I remember getting there and looking round at these new colleagues of mine, most of whom were younger than I was, and I thought to myself

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP19:54

How on earth can I possibly make any kind of a mark here?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP19:58

and even for a fleeting moment wondered whether I'd done the right thing.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP20:04

I'm pretty tired, okay.

Presenter20:05

Turned out okay. You um you were obviously very good at the job and you rose quickly through the ranks. I think you were in the Cabinet before you were fifty, so you know you s you were on the right course, hm.

Presenter20:16

Okay.

Presenter20:16

Record number five.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP20:18

Well, record number five goes back to my years as a a candidate in Liverpool where

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP20:24

When I went forth for selection, they said to me, Do you have any real connection with Liverpool? and I said, I I don't have any real connection with Liverpool, but I said, thinking it would do me some good, but it was also the truth, ever since I've been a small boy I have been a passionate supporter of Liverpool Football Club.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP20:41

There was then a deathly hush.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP20:44

Every single person in the room was an Everton supporter, and I thought that had absolutely done me in. And I think the fact that they selected me despite that was probably the single greatest political achievement of my entire career. And I'd go and stand on the cop on Saturday afternoon and watch the great Liverpool team of uh the mid sixties play. So my fifth record is You'll Never Walk Alone.

Presenter21:12

What else?

Speaker 321:16

And yo

Speaker 321:19

I do that.

Speaker 321:30

You missed.

Presenter21:40

You'll never walk alone by Gerry and the Pacemakers. So you were Secretary of State for Employment and Then Environment and then Home Secretary before the Tory party went into meltdown in 1997. And you might have succeeded John Major as leader, but it was Anne Whitticombe and that terrible phrase, there's something of the night about him that did for you, wasn't it? He sort of sucked the lifeblood out of your political career. Temporarily, as it turned out.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP22:06

I dare know that it was

Presenter22:07

Just that.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP22:07

But it certainly didn't help.

Presenter22:09

Absolutely. But it wasn't just that she impugned your integrity,'cause in the sense you could see that off and you did see that off it was that it seemed to sort of ring a bell with your colleagues, didn't it?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP22:20

Well

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP22:21

You

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP22:23

Go into this

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP22:25

Business of politics with your eyes open.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP22:28

You know it's a rough and tough business, and you have to take these things on the chin. Can you ever forgive her? Oh, yes. Um of course. We've had several perfectly friendly discussions since then. Uh

Presenter22:41

Perfectly frame.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP22:41

Yeah.

Presenter22:41

Message.

Presenter22:43

Uh Of course. Really?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP22:45

It's part of political life.

Presenter22:46

Okay, you're very stoical about it all. But in in the end, of course, you must be right, because it it it didn't count, because in the end the call did come and you are leader.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP22:55

And since I'm someone who, for better or for worse, has very clear ideas about what I want to do, I was obviously delighted to have the opportunity of putting those ideas before the people of the country and and hoping that they got us elected so that we can put them into practice.

Presenter23:16

Speaking Totally personally for one moment, this is your personal game plan. Do you regard the next election as your one and only chance? If you don't pull it off, you step down.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP23:28

I don't know, and I don't think about that, because

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP23:31

I am really completely focused on doing everything I can do to win the next election.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP23:38

And I'm not prepared to start thinking about what the consequences of failure are, because it will be failure.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP23:46

I am not in this job to reduce the government's majority or improve the standing of the Conservative Party. I'm in this job to win the next election, and I don't really think about what might happen if there was some other outcome.

Presenter24:00

What would happen, whether you win it or lose it, is that you'd be of pensionable age by the following election. I mean, does that concern? It's an indisputable fact. It is, it is.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP24:05

Can I exhibit?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP24:07

It is, it is. It is, absolutely.

Presenter24:09

It's also indisputable that we've had uh Prime Ministers of of pensionable age and well beyond in the past. Not any more, though. It's not the vogue any more, is it?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP24:19

Well, you know, they have them in other countries, but who knows? Let's not go down that road.

Presenter24:25

So do you think the extent of your defeat, were it to be defeat, would dictate whether you stood down or not?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP24:30

I'm not thinking about defeat.

Presenter24:33

Well, we'll talk about that in a second, but let's pause for some more music.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP24:37

Mozart's piano concerto number 21 is a sublimely beautiful piece of music and I love it. I first came across it, I'm ashamed to say, because everybody ought to know it from an early age, when I went to see a film called El Vira Madigan and it was the theme of that film. And it's just terrific and I'd like the Alfred Brendel version, please.

Presenter26:00

Part of the second movement of Mozart's piano concerto number twenty one played by Alfred Brendel with the Academy of Saint Martin in the Fields conducted by Sir Neville Mariner.

Presenter26:09

There's an electoral everest to climb, isn't there, Michael Hard, if you're to win the next general election with a a year, two at the most to go and you're really only in the foothills, short of a major catastrophe in the Labour ranks, it's not going to happen, is it?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP26:23

Oh, I don't agree with that. Everest has been climbed.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP26:26

Many times. But a a swing that you require has not occurred ever, has it? Well, it has really. You look at the elections for the London Assembly, and London has never really been regarded as our favourite hunting ground. On those results, we would have an overall majority. On the local election results, the country as a whole, we'd be not very far short of an overall majority.

Presenter26:46

This is picking and choosing a bit though, isn't it? I mean the national polls show that you are in the mid thirty percent, as it were, and then you need to be in the forties if you're going to sweep them out of power.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP26:57

Well, we need to be

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP27:00

about eleven points ahead of them. On the local election results we were twelve points ahead of them. So I am absolutely certain it can be done. Of course whether it will be done is up to the British people.

Presenter27:11

But

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP27:11

Yeah, we

Presenter27:11

The truth of your leadership is that it's given a huge amount of new heart to the Parliamentary Party, but that hasn't translated into votes as far as these polls are concerned, has it?

Presenter27:22

That's your problem. How how do you get from here to there?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP27:25

Right.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP27:27

translated into votes to some extent, as the recent election results demonstrate, but not enough. Of course, not enough. And of course, we have a lot to do between now and the next election. I'm quite confident that we can do it.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP27:43

I think that people have lost faith in the present government. Now, that's not enough for us to win. We have to convince people that we are a credible alternative who will really make things happen for them, will really make a difference to their lives. Now, I think we're making progress towards achieving that. We haven't yet achieved it. I fully accept we've got some way to go, and I'm convinced we can do it.

Presenter28:11

But you mustn't dream of a stroke of luck. I mean, what might it be? A change of Labour leadership. That's not going to happen now, is it? You must you know, governments lose elections, oppositions don't win them, we know that.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP28:22

No, I don't entirely agree with that. I think you need both. You need, obviously, if the people of a country think their government's doing wonderful things for them, an opposition isn't going to win an election. But it's not enough just for people to lose faith in their government. They also have to have faith in the alternative. And we have not yet done everything we need to do in order to get to that point. But I'm confident we can get to that point, and then it would be up to the people to choose.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP28:50

Record number seven. Record number seven really takes us back to the sixties, I'm afraid. Again. It does.

Speaker 328:54

Again, I

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP28:56

I suppose I listened to more music in that decade than since. Prokulharam and a whiter shade of pale. It's a great track.

Speaker 329:06

We skip the light and dango

Speaker 329:12

Turned cartwheels crossed the floor

Speaker 329:19

I was feeling kinda seasick

Speaker 329:25

The crowd called out for more.

Speaker 329:32

Was coming harder.

Presenter29:34

Propoharm and a whiter shade of pale. I can't quite see you on a desert island, Michael Hard. Um coping with life in the raw or am I missing something here? This is another false perception.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP29:44

Is there a full

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP29:45

No, I'd be absolutely useless. Shortly after my father married my mother, he tried to fix something in the bathroom, punctured the plumbing of the entire house, caused an enormous flood, used that as an excuse for the rest of his life not to do anything in the house, and I regard that excuse as hereditary.

Presenter30:08

What I do know is that you would miss your wife of thirty years, Sandra, hugely. And I know this because I read that you're romantic. She said so in various profiles in the newspapers. You you wooed her with a book in the first instance, I read.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP30:23

When we first met I discovered that she hadn't read Tender is the Night.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP30:28

And I thought that was a pity because I think it's it's a it's a great novel, and so I sent her a copy.

Presenter30:34

That did the trick.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP30:36

But I didn't know whether it was entirely due to the

Presenter30:38

That.

Presenter30:39

It's a touch of Scott Fitzgerald and she was yours. I get the impression that you've obviously been very happy, are very happy, but that you regard your life together as separate from your politics, as it were. You know, politics is something really rather like the law that you go out and do, and then you come home, and life is life.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP30:59

Yes. I mean, you've got to try and have some private space and it's d difficult, but you've got to try not to let politics completely take everything over. And we do discuss everything and she has, you know, she has she has views which she um expresses quite forcefully. I don't always agree with her, but

Presenter31:15

But I just

Presenter31:18

I just wonder if that's why, you know, there's been this gap in perception that I was talking about earlier, that that in fact you've regarded your politics rather like being an adversarial lawyer. It's something you go out and do, and at home you're witty and charming, and out there you're a kind of different character. Do you think that's where this gap has occurred?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP31:34

I don't know.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP31:37

Pass.

Presenter31:38

All right. Well, now, in fact, the two lives must fuse because life is taken over by being leader, isn't it? I mean, you must eat.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP31:45

Pretty much.

Presenter31:47

Drink, sleep, live it. Can't avoid it.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP31:51

It's difficult. It's diff there are moments that you can grab, um and they're very important and we do, um but it is pretty all consuming.

Presenter32:01

But a a happy business?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP32:02

Yes. Some days are more enjoyable than others. But yes, no, this is a happy one. It is indeed. No, it's you know, I'm I'm incredibly fortunate and privileged to be doing what I'm doing. And I'm not sure.

Presenter32:06

This is a happy one.

Presenter32:15

Just but are you enjoying it as we get what I'm asking?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP32:15

Enjoying it is really what I'm on. Yes, I am a lot.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP32:20

Last record. Well, the last record is um

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP32:25

Brian Adams, everything I do, I do it for you. Whatever little I've achieved.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP32:30

I couldn't have done it without Sandra, so this is dedicated to her.

Speaker 332:34

Oh, you can't tell me it's not worth trying for.

Speaker 332:42

I can't help it. There's nothing I want more Yeah

Presenter33:05

Great stuff. Good for the last dance of the evening. Brian Adams and everything I do, I do it for you. So if you could only take one of those records, need I ask, really?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP33:16

It has to be the last one.

Presenter33:17

Doesn't it?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP33:17

Doesn't it?

Presenter33:18

What about your book?

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP33:21

Well there's

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP33:22

The b

Presenter33:23

Best.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP33:23

political biography that I've ever read.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP33:26

is it's going to be in five volumes eventually. Only three of them have come out. It's by Robert Caro. It's a biography of Lyndon Johnson. And I don't think you've put a date as to when I get to this Desert Island, so I hope that by the time I get there all five volumes will have been published.

Presenter33:42

Okay, and a luxury.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP33:45

Hot shower and some soap.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP33:47

Please.

Presenter33:49

Michael Hard, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island disc.

Rt Hon Michael Howard MP33:52

Thank you, Sue.

Speaker 234:00

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