Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Politician who made a famously stirring speech at age 16, later led the Conservative Party after the 1997 defeat, and resigned after a second crushing loss in 2
On the island
Eight records
Prelude in E minor, Op. 28, No. 4
Well, my first record is is a piece of music which is one of the first that I've learnt to play on the piano. It will be played in this recording, I'm sure, far better than I can play it. But it's a Chopin, it's his uh prelude in E minor, and I've enjoyed learning it over the last few months.
Enigma Variations, Op. 36: IX. NimrodFavourite
London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Adrian Boult
Well record number two makes me think of Yorkshire, makes me think of my constituency. It's Nimrod. Catrick Garrison is in my constituency. Huge military presence. And also it's a very English place, and this is very English music.
John Major astonished me when he asked me to be Secretary of State for Wales. And I thought of poor John Redward not being able to sing the Welsh National Anthem, and the first thing I said to John Major was, I'd better learn the National Anthem. And so I did, a few days later, from Fionn, then my private secretary, sitting on a churchyard wall, and it's the Welsh National Anthem sung by Bryn Turville and my het my Henlard van Haddai.
Vesperae solennes de confessore, K. 339: V. Laudate Dominum
Kiri Te Kanawa, London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Sir Colin Davis
The next record I've chosen is from uh music that we played at our wedding. It's Mozart, it's Laudate Dominum, and it makes me think of that pretty wonderful day.
Well, this reminds me of living through those difficult times. I got a great fondness for jazz while I was party leader over the last four years. Both Theon and my great friend Seb Coe are tremendous jazz fans. And this is Scott Hamilton playing Black Velvet.
Record number six is another piece of of jazz. Um I'm obviously being interested now in playing the piano, jazz piano is something I particularly enjoy. Gene Harris and the Sidewinder.
Record number seven makes me think of the place I go to with with Fionn on holiday more than anywhere else, uh the mountains of Montana in the northwestern United States. This is a song sung by Walking Jim Stoltz, who will not be known in this country, but who I listen to every winter when I'm out there skiing, and it's about the scenery out there, and it's called The Great Divide.
The last record rather sums up that attitude. It it's what Fionn says is the record that that that sums me up, and it's Frank Sinatra singing That's Laugh.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:17When did you know [that the 2001 election might not go the way you wanted]?
Well I knew for a l a long time that the election might not go the way that we wanted it to. Obviously hoped that we would gain a larger number of seats. I thought we would narrow the gap with the Labour Party in votes, which we did. But that wasn't reflected in gaining many seats in the Party.
Presenter asks
2:55When did you make that plan [to take personal responsibility and resign]?
Well, certainly some months before the election. However, acceptance would be not quite the right word, because of course I was still fighting to succeed. That is the thing I would most have liked to do.
Presenter asks
4:07How much does [having a contingency plan] help you absorb the distress of public humiliation?
It helps a lot to know what you would do if you were not doing the job that you're enjoying and you're doing that day, to know that there is something else that you would like to do. But I didn't feel a sense of personal humiliation. I thought I'd done my job, that it hadn't gone as well as it should have done. Therefore I would do something else. It's very straightforward.
The keepsakes
The book
Robert Caro
I'd take a book by a man called Robert Carrow, who has written two brilliant volumes on the life of Lyndon Johnson, and wrote the most exciting account of an election I've ever read in my life. It's an account of the Texas Senate race in nineteen forty eight, and it's beautifully written, as well as being hugely exciting.
The luxury
My luxury would be quite difficult to arrange, but you're very kind, and I would have a dojo, which is where a place where martial arts can be practised.
Presenter asks
7:30What did your friends at school think of you then [given how busy and politically focused you were]?
To them it wasn't, though, because they knew me, so they didn't turn against me and say he's a freak. They were still very much my friends, and we had a great time.
Presenter asks
22:21How much do you think that your image was the problem?
I think it may have been a one factor. I think the much bigger factors are what we discussed earlier, the m the major political forces at work. But certainly I had a problem getting people to see what I was really like. Because the uh modern media are image obsessed, they think that everything you do yourself is about your image. So it's quite hard to persuade them these are things you do anyway.
Presenter asks
31:42Would you have another shot at being Prime Minister?
Oh, I'm certainly not planning to do that. In a way, I've got that out of the system now. Yes, I've always been an ambitious person, but the the ambition has now passed through the system. You know, I've done that and been there. I've been leader of the party. I've got that T-shirt to the extent that's uh what it was. And so any decision I ever make in the future about uh about what I do in politics can be determined entirely dispassionately.
“I thought it was important for the party and for me to be defeated but not diminished, and that if I was going to go I should go on my own terms and at my own time.”
“My sister Veronica used to write to me dear Tory Pig. She used to start her letters just to make sure I wasn't getting too grand.”
“I am motivated by convictions, and I am not going to say the opposite of what I believe... In order to win elections?”
“I remember saying to Fion, When I became leader of the party, this is a roller coaster, and don't ever get on a roller coaster thinking it's only going to go up. And my enjoyment of politics is rarely correlated with success in it.”