Rt. Hon. Michael Heseltine

Rt. Hon. Michael Heseltine0:00

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 nineteen eighty eight, and the presenter was Michael Parkinson.

Presenter0:30

A castaway is often described as one of the new breed of Tory politicians, a self-made man, an entrepreneur, a good manager. As such, he made a real impression on Conservatives, becoming the darling of the rank and file and a member of Mrs. Thatcher's cabinet. He was widely tipped with the next leader of the Tory party. But all that changed dramatically in 1986 when he resigned as Secretary of State for Defence over the Westland affair. He is Michael Hesletine. Mr. Heseltine, would you like the idea of a long and forced rest on this desert island? I don't think anyone voluntarily chooses long and forced rests. But I've been fascinated by aspects of desert islands. I'm fond of birds. I love swimming, scuba diving, snorking. And so there's an immediate sort of benefit, but it's not my nature. I wouldn't want to be there for that long. Are you a practical enough man to A survive and B escape? Well, I'm certainly practical. I can do things, build things with my hands and all that sort of thing. Escape? Possibly, but again, having spent quite a lot of my time scuba diving, I've got a healthy respect for what's under the sea, and it would take quite a sturdy craft to persuade me to set sail. Now, what about the choice of music to accompany you on this island? I mean, how have you gone about choosing it? Are they just particular favourite tunes, or do they have memories associated? Well, you gave me a lot of notice, and that's very generous of you. And I think they come into categories. First of all, there were sort of three families with which I've obviously been deeply involved, my grandparents, parents, and my own family. And so there's a memory of each of those. And then, although I'm not musical, I love great sounds. And I think that the three next choices seem to me wonderful noise.

Presenter2:10

Then it would be very lonely and you'd need a lot of courage. There'd be some bleak moments on your desert island. And so I ask for what else? Churchill's incredible speech, which seems to me to encapsulate one of the most remarkable calls to courage and determination. And then finally, well, it chooses itself. We'll keep a welcome in the hillside. Well where do we start? We start with my father's favourite tune, The Teddy Bears Picnic.

Speaker 22:38

If you go down in the woods today, you're sure of a big surprise. If you go down in the woods today, you'd better go in disguise. For every bear that ever there was will gather there for certain because today's the day the teddy bears have the picknick.

Presenter3:08

Teddy Bear's picnic played by the Palm Court Theatre Orchestra, and sung by Alwyn Green. Reminder there, mister Heseltine, you said of your of your father. What kind of man was he?

Presenter3:17

Well he died when I was very young and uh of course I hero worshipped him. He was uh a profound uh rock in my life and uh he was everything that one would have wanted from a father in those circumstances and it was a shattering blow to my family, myself, when um I think at twenty one, twenty two he died. Well he d when I was twenty one, twenty two. What particular virtues did he possess that uh that you admired?

Presenter3:43

In many ways th there there are obviously lots, but the thing that I remember

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and miss most.

Presenter3:50

is the support that he gave me in everything that I did. He uh had had a distinguished uh uh career himself in Swansea, where he had played a significant role in the local uh territorial army, and he'd gone to run a local uh steel fabrication company there as a director. But

Presenter4:09

Whenever I was doing something, he wanted to know about it and always try and come and support me and take an interest in it, and uh it's always been an immense source of sadness to me that in a political career that has not been without its uh exciting moments he was never there to uh uh see it, although of course my mother has been. What d what was politics in your mind at at that time? Were your father still alive? Did you listen to that? I remember him uh playing uh the the role of chairman in a meeting in Swansea in the nineteen fifty one general election campaign. So yes, he but he didn't he wasn't in a active in politics, never had a political involvement, but he just was asked to be the chairman and uh so I went. Uh that was one of the first elections that I obviously played any part in. Apart from the untimely death of your father, was it generally speaking a comfortable background, a middle-class background? Absolutely. We lived in South Wales, but we lived in a part of South Wales where we obviously enjoyed a very considerable degree of comfort. My father and my grandfather had had to make their immense efforts in their own lives. Life hadn't sort of always been a sort of bed of roses. My father went to local grammar school and from there he obviously worked his way up to the top of the company that he was involved in. But it it wasn't a background where in any way we felt the harshness of the 1930s in South Wales.

Presenter5:31

Another choice of record, please. Well, uh the other man who played a decisive influence in my life was my maternal grandfather, and uh this song was the one I remember him uh and associate with him, Keep Right On to the End of the Road.

Speaker 35:46

Keep right on to the end of the road. Keep right on to the end. Though the way be long, let your heart be strong. Keep right on round the bend. If you're tired and weary, still journey on, till you come to your happy abode.

Presenter6:14

Sahariloda, keep right on to the end of the road.

Presenter6:17

Mr. Erzeltine, you you talk there about about your family background. What kind of of school do you go to? Junior school, first of all. Were you sent away to school? I went to a kindergarten in Swansea called Oakley House, and very happy it was. I remember it very well, and the uh atmosphere was terrific. And I think it was Mrs. Bartlett Williams who was the headmistress, wonderful lady. I followed my father in the early days of the war to Northern Ireland and to Clitheroe, and then to Oxford, where he commanded various parts of the Royal Engineers. And then when he was involved in getting ready for the Normandy invasion and ultimately went over to the continent, we uh went back to South Wales. But uh beyond going to schools m that reflected the fact that we were doing that, I went to a preparatory school, Bromsgrove, and then on to uh Shrewsbury. Do you enjoy Shrewsbury?

Speaker 37:12

Enjoy Shro.

Presenter7:13

I don't look back on it as one of the most uh satisfactory uh parts of my life. Uh I never seemed to be able to get my feet uh on any sort of rung of any sort of ladder. Uh there were things I did quite well, but perhaps it was me, perhaps it was the environment, who knows, what does it matter? But I mean it it isn't uh if you look at my record at Shrewsbury, it doesn't uh add up to much. What do you do in fact do well at Shrewsbury? I mean what what do you shine at? Well it's quite difficult to think of the list and if you think of the list it's not very long. I did actually get into the school athletic team but that was more the fact I had longer legs than anybody else than anything else and I actually got in the school athletic team for high jumping, which reflects the length of a leg and the humiliation of the day in which I having practised for months to become the sort of great sort of whiz kid of high jumping to see one of the great athletes of the school stroll off the soccer field and without any practice enter the final day of the s the high jumping contest to win was I mean the ultimate said it all about my contribution to Shrewsbury. Another choice of record please. Well obviously my own family, my wife and the the the music that uh I would want to choose uh as uh the memory of this part of uh my life is Greensleeves, which of course was um part of our wedding ceremony.

Presenter9:27

It was part of Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a theme of green streaves played by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, conducted by Sir Neville Mariner.

Presenter9:36

Michael Heseltine, can we move now to Oxford days? Did you in fact you enjoy Oxford? Oxford was to me the most exciting experience that anyone could have. Why? For the first time, I felt in the company of people who shared the sort of interests that were rapidly developing in me. I felt involved in a competitive environment with people that one regarded as one's peers. It stretched one, it opened horizons, all was there. A great period of experimentation. And of course, many of the people one's met have remained friends and contemporaries and colleagues ever since. I suppose that centred about all of that was the Oxford Union, which I owe an immense amount. You you in fact you made your name for yourself as President of the of the Union by

Presenter10:27

Revealing your skill as an entrepreneur, you're remembered as the man who made the restaurant profitable and who converted the cellars into a nightclub. And how do you achieve this remarkable? I think if I can put it in a non-headline and less glamorous but more realistic role, I mean what I actually did was to put the union finances back on a stable basis by getting a lot more members in, by giving them a better service, and by making the thing pay. Well, it's perfectly true. We did, as part of that process, give them a restaurant which gave them meals. Can you believe it? Four course meals for two and six, five course meals for three and six, but it seems incredible these days, but it's what we did. And we built a nightclub. And the nightclub was very simply my own loathing, which actually you can see in in a later career, of waste. And here was this incredible caved brick cellar, unused, used as a coal dump. And so we did it up, and we put a floor in there, and we turned it into a nightclub, and it was very popular in this time.

Rt. Hon. Michael Heseltine10:36

Yeah.

Presenter11:23

Where does some Bernard Docker fit into this story? Ah well, I had to d try and launch the nightclub and make it give it an opening ceremony. And one looked around for some of the most colourful people of their time, and the Dockers undoubtedly were. So I asked Lady Docker, actually, if she would come and perform the opening ceremony. I had no idea that it was going to lead where it did, which was of course incredible, because I was having the opening dance with her, if you could call what we did in those sellers dancing. And she suddenly looked up at me and said, Michael Bernard, I would like to pay for all of this. Well, I mean, that was an offer you can't refuse.

Rt. Hon. Michael Heseltine11:25

Ah, well

Presenter11:56

Cost him six hundred pounds.

Presenter11:59

Now you mentioned there that that at Oxford you you had this sort of awakening, as you described them. I mean these were political awakenings, were they? These were political ambitions that you had. I think that, um but also uh a feeling of confidence, of being able to involve oneself in things which one was able to do as well as some of one's contemporaries. And uh of course they were largely centred on uh one's political uh interests, but not altogether, because at uh Oxford I first met the two people with whom I became uh partners in business after Oxford days. We became friendly on a personal basis, a chap called Ian Joseph's and a chap called Clive Lebovich. And uh we um knew each other as friends at Oxford and then

Rt. Hon. Michael Heseltine12:07

Bye.

Presenter12:42

By that coincidence, both the two strands of my commercial career first in hotel property type activity, and secondly in publishing, which turned out to be much the bigger of my interests they came absolutely by fluke, by coincidence, from knowing those two people.

Presenter12:57

Another choice of record, please.

Presenter13:00

Well, the next three records, really, are good noise. I'm not, as I said, early musical, but I do absolutely adore being sort of overwhelmed by what seems to me a very uh compelling uh music. And uh the first is the Alleluia Chorus.

Presenter14:17

There's a hallelujah chorus from Handel's Messiah, the Huddersfield Choral Society, and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent.

Presenter14:26

Michael Hisseltine, it seems to me when you look back at that your career that that you had a very clear plan from the very beginning about entering politics. Stop me if I'm wrong. It seemed to me that when you left university that that the first thing you did was to establish yourself in business, to make your pow, so to speak, and using that as a springboard into politics. Would I be right in thinking that?

Presenter14:46

I think that there's a large measure of truth in the fact that I wanted to try and make myself financially independent if I could. But I didn't give up politics. What I didn't do was to throw myself into sort of full-time politics. I played a a limited role. I had friends in politics. I kept in touch. I was involved in the Beau Group on a limited scale and I made speeches for the Conservative Party on a limited scale. But I didn't become an activist in the sort of young Conservative movement or anything like that, because all my time was given to being articled as a chartered accountant and trying in the long reaches of the night to modernise and update the sort of properties that we were buying for letting purposes. Did you enjoy being a property developer? Yes, loved it. It's there again. You can see it all through my love of the heritage and the fascination I found in redeveloping places like Docklands. I do actually find that the opportunity to see something real and visible and visually exciting coming out of what one is doing a very exciting and stimulating activity. And I've had a a lot of fun in that sense. What about the publishing industry? Because I suppose one ought to own up. I mean, you were once my boss. Well, we worked, we were partners. You were my boss. You own the magazine. And we worked the two magazines, a news magazine called Topic and another magazine called Man About Town. I just wondered, did you did you in those days, did you enjoy, A, being a publisher? And B, did you see that possibly that might be a competitor in the future for your energies? I mean, do you want to be sort of like a Rupert Murdoch figure?

Rt. Hon. Michael Heseltine16:00

Nevertheless, you're my boss, Mike.

Presenter16:22

I I never saw it as a long-term, whole-time commitment. I very much and I said to uh my partner at the time that uh uh I wanted to make a success of the business, but when the business was successful, hopefully, I would be immersed in politics and would then not play a full-time active role. It so happened that um the coincidence of events of m moving up the Tory front bench ladder and the success of the business and then being asked to join Mr Heath's government all came towards the end of the nineteen sixties and of course nineteen seventy. So it it it just about worked out that the way that I would hoped it had. I suppose in a sense too of course it gave you what you have now a fairly easy relationship with journalists. You know how they work don't you and how their how their twisted minds think. I have that sort of obsessive deferential attitude to journalists characteristic in public of all politicians.

Presenter17:16

I know this guy's a record mic.

Rt. Hon. Michael Heseltine17:16

Oh this shows a rubber.

Presenter17:18

Well, the next one is another marvelous uh noise, and that's Revell's Bolero.

Presenter18:23

Ravel's Bolero played by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Andrei Previn.

Presenter18:28

Michael Hasseltine, going back to that thing about your understanding of publicity and of the way that news is made, I want to take you back to that debate on nationalisation in 1976 when you made the headlines by grabbing the mace in the House and swinging it around. I mean, was that a calculator move? I mean, did you actually do that to create a spotlight upon you? Or was it a spontaneous combustion? The interesting thing is how you misdescribe what happened. Because that is, of course, the impression which people reading the headlines might have got, but it wasn't what happened at all. What happened is that the Labour Party cheated over the nationalisation measure, which they would have lost if they hadn't cheated. Remarkable thing for those of us who led the opposition in that context to have actually brought a major piece of legislation to an end. And the Labour Party broke a pair. And having broken a pair, which meant they managed to get a majority of one, they then stood on their benches and sang the red flag in the House of Commons. And I was appalled and affronted by this usurpation of power without justification. And I picked up the mace and offered it to them in a wholly obvious gesture, a thing at which I apologised to the House. But that's what happened. Of course, once the boys get at it, the headlines tell a different story. But it was very interesting recently how many people have said to me, how did that image ever get portrayed? Because we were there on the night and it was never the way that it was depicted. Well then let me ask you another question then. I mean how did you get the nickname Tarzan?

Presenter19:57

It's fascinating how these things happen. I have no idea. And I think by repetition is the truth, because it never was real. People didn't call me Tarson, but somebody decided that, I don't know for physical reasons or whatever, that I had an appearance faintly like Johnny Wesserman or whatever. And they started to run it. And they said everyone calls him. No one called me that. But bit by bit, because they kept repeating it, people began to do it. Now I think it's probably true they do. But they're going to call you something, aren't they? Do you object? No, no, no. It's when they ignore you that you object. Precisely the point, I think, yes. Could have another choice of record.

Rt. Hon. Michael Heseltine20:25

So we do

Presenter20:32

Well, I drive all round this country, largely speaking, and uh every so often out of the car radio comes this extraordinary voice of uh Dame Eva Turner. And so let's choose one fine day from Madam Butterfly.

Speaker 320:54

Live of God alive, Lord See on the far rising.

Speaker 321:18

They

Speaker 321:25

I feel like

Presenter21:46

That was Eva Turner singing one fine day from Madam Butterfly.

Presenter21:51

Michael Hesertine, you you entered Mrs. Thatcher's cabinet in 1979 as Secretary for the Environment and as such you were involved in the Toxteth riots and indeed the riots throughout Britain that happened. You had at first hand, I suppose, a very clear view of one of the great problems in Britain today. I just want you to look back and answer and tell me, do you think things have improved since those days? And if they have, why? Or what what's happened? Is there is there in the future is there to be the same again, do you think, or what?

Presenter22:21

They've improved in the sense that there is now much more optimism because the economy has come through a difficult period and a lot of the uncertainties associated with inflation have been reduced and there is now growth and there is a lowering level of unemployment and that must reflect attitudes on the ground. So yes, there have been improvements. There's also been, I hope I played a part in it, a very remarkable understanding of how to bring new opportunities for redeveloping our inner cities. But that doesn't escape from the fact that there is always the contrast between the prosperous and the less prosperous. There are always those who haven't got work, have no prospect of work, and those who are obviously very well employed. So society is always about contrasts. Politics is about dealing with the issues of contrasts. And those contrasts are there in every society in every age. They're there in ours as they always have been. But are we dealing with them effectively? I mean, there's still this huge north-south divide, isn't there? I think that that is one of the shorthands to describe the problem. But in truth, you can go to many parts of the north which are extremely prosperous, and you can go to parts of the south, for example, inner London or to Cornwall, which are very far from prosperous. So the shorthand isn't accurate, but that doesn't matter, because people are talking about a generalization, and one has to look beneath it to see the detail of it. There are centralising forces at work in our society, many of them encouraged by the tax system, but wider issues are at work as well, which are polarising our society towards the south and south east and to the city of London.

Speaker 323:15

But

Rt. Hon. Michael Heseltine23:24

Yeah.

Presenter23:55

which cause growing worries and anxieties, and I think justifiably, because if you're going to govern a country, if you're going to preside over what the Tory party, which I believe always returns to the theme of one nation, you have to balance the checks and balances of democratic politics. You have to have a concern for those who are at the the less successful and the less prosperous end of the political horizon.

Presenter24:22

But how frustrating do you find it now, given that there are these problems in Britain, given that there's there's still a a lot to be done in this country, to find yourself out of the mainstream as such of decision-making? Well exactly it is of course immensely uh frustrating. But I made the decision. I knew what I was doing. Why did you make the decision? Why? Well the the history of it is very clearly articulated and I've never seen the point of going back over it all. Uh there was a fundamental disagreement between myself and the Prime Minister and the only honourable thing for me to do was go.

Rt. Hon. Michael Heseltine24:31

Well you reside me.

Presenter24:49

But that was a decision you made because you objected to the way that the the Cabinet was being run. Well, there was a specific issue on which uh I felt I was not receiving the entitlement of a cabinet minister and uh there was no way of reconciling the two views and uh therefore the the right way seemed to me to go. I was very sad but uh that I've never doubted that that was the right decision. But in the immediate future, Mr Haiseltan, do you see that you yourself have any future in the in a Tory Cabinet with Mrs Thatcher as the leader of the party? I don't think it's any point in speculating about the future in this context. I very clearly made a decision that I had to go and uh in going I assumed that that would be the end of the personal relationship as uh two politicians in the same cabinet, myself and the Prime Minister. Uh that's my responsibility.

Presenter25:36

Another choice of record, please.

Presenter25:39

It would

Presenter25:40

inevitably have some pretty bleak and depressing moments if you were sitting on a desert island. You would wonder about the future and uh it would be very easy to feel yourself slipping away and giving in. And so, perhaps for that reason, perhaps as a politician, I would draw strength on perhaps the most remarkable speech ever made to a nation in its darkest hour, Winston Churchill's speech, We Shall Never Surrender.

Rt. Hon. Michael Heseltine26:07

For rights reasons, we are unable to bring you this choice.

Presenter26:12

The voice of Sir Winston Churchill. Michael Hesledown, if I came arrived here from another planet and I sat opposite to you and I was told you were a politician and I asked you the question, what sort of politician are you? How would you answer? I would say I belong to the Tory wing of the Conservative Party. And you naturally ask me what I meant by that. And I would say that the Conservative Party is the most experienced and sophisticated political force in the history of democracy. It has governed this country longer than any other equivalent party has ever done in any equivalent society. And it has done so because it understood the balance between the privileged who have often led the Conservative Party, the more prosperous elements of society who support the Conservative Party.

Rt. Hon. Michael Heseltine26:28

But

Presenter26:54

And indeed I would be associated with them. It has recognised the balance between them and the obligations that come from privilege. Well, this in your book Where There's a Will, where you set out your philosophy, you you define this, I suppose, as carrying capitalism, don't you? This is basically because it is saying to companies, you ought to have regard to gain consent for the democratic concepts of liberal capitalism from the communities in which you trade.

Rt. Hon. Michael Heseltine27:09

That is an example.

Presenter27:21

I was going to say that many, many people might argue that the two words are in fact a contradiction. I disagree with that. I think that there are growing examples of the numbers of companies in our country, major capitalist companies and medium-sized ones, who are now giving more effort and thought to helping the communities upon whose support and trade they depend. The business in the community example is one. I think there are now about a hundred companies in this country setting aside one percent of their pre-tax profits to help local projects of a social or political, in the widest sense, nature. And I've seen enough of what the banks and the building societies, insurance companies, the large trading companies, the service industries are prepared to do when encouraged to play a role, particularly in rebuilding the urban areas. Very exciting examples can be given. I saw a lot of it on Merseyside, but it's happening in many other parts of the country.

Presenter28:15

Now, what about you yourself, about your personal ambition? Because it seems to me that you've always had this very clear idea of what you wanted to be. I mean, I won't insult you by asking, do you want to be Prime Minister or leader of your party? Of course you do. I mean, any politician worth insult does. But it seemed to me that you had this very clear ambition from the very beginning. You had a kind of timetable to your life. I wonder how severe a disruption of that timetable the events of 86 were to you. And secondly,

Presenter28:41

If you look toward a future where the ultimate ambition can't be achieved,

Presenter28:45

Are you going to remain in politics? Well, it's easier to answer that question because I certainly am going to remain in politics. I'm fascinated by it. I receive a vast number of invitations from people who want to hear what I've got to say. And I think that there are many roles that you can play. So, yes, I'm going to remain in politics. When you ask me about the evolution of one's career, frankly, I have no idea. But nobody else has either. Final choice of record, please.

Presenter29:14

Well, sitting there on my desert island and thinking about it all, I suppose it could never occur to me that in one way or another I'd never be back.

Presenter29:23

And so

Presenter29:25

We'll keep a welcome in the hillside.

Speaker 329:31

I give the sign

Speaker 329:34

We keep a web of meeting.

Speaker 329:40

It's on the new world of sin.

Speaker 329:52

Be a friendly light and find you.

Speaker 329:57

Oh, yes, I honor it praise.

Speaker 330:03

You kiss away from longing when you come home some day.

Presenter30:16

Bookkeeper Welcome in the Hillside is sung by the Morriston Orpheus Choir.

Presenter30:20

Michael Heselton, you're now on your desert island. You have to imagine that one day a tidal wave comes along, it wipes away seven of your records, you're left with one. Which one would it be? It would have to be the last one. Why is that? Well, it's where it all began. The uh

Presenter30:35

The beaches of Langland and Caswell, the Gower Peninsula, the wonderful countryside, the people, the family, the home.

Presenter30:44

And what about the book?

Presenter30:46

Assume you've got the Bible and the works of Shakespeare. In many ways, the same thought. I'd want to think about what I was going to do when I got off the island, because I would assume that I would get off the island and I would come back. And so I'd want something constructive to do. My obsession outside uh politics is uh gardening.

Presenter31:06

And so I would take the Dictionary of Trees and Shrubs by Kreuzmann, so that when I come back I would be ready to go to create the greatest arboretum that anyone ever saw. And what about the luxury object inanimate? Ah, well, this says it all. I would have a mosquito net to give me comfort at night, and to turn into a fishing net by day.

Presenter31:25

Michael Heseltine, thank you very much indeed. Thank you.

Rt. Hon. Michael Heseltine31:34

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