The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major KG CH

Category: 2001-2009

  • Mr Major’s Speech at Cancer Research UK Event – 2 September 2004

    The text of John Major’s speech at an event for Cancer Research UK, held at the Paris Restaurant, in Woburn, on Thursday 2nd September 2004.

    JOHN MAJOR:

    When Steven Dixon invited, I was delighted to accept. Steven’s parents – Ian and Valerie – were good friends and Ian fought so bravely against the cancer that overwhelmed him.

    And it was such a waste of a man who could – and did – contribute; who made friends and cherished them; who cared about matters beyond his own interests; and who had a loving family – and left much sadness behind him.

    Ian was a vibrant man and someone you don’t forget. A poet once wrote: “no man is gone while his friends remember him”: on that premise, Ian is with us tonight and always will be.

    Cancer has touched nearly everyone. It took my mother-in-law; my brother-in-law; my son-in-law (a young doctor aged only 30), and a very close friend and my brother are being treated for the disease now but with real hope of recovery.

    And that, of course, is the purpose of research: lives can be saved that otherwise would be lost. It is why I’m pleased to be here amongst donors who have given generously to the charity.

    We are making progress – but no room for complacency. Another close friend, a public figure, was diagnosed with a fatal cancer and given 6 months to live. That was 4 years ago: he received treatment overseas where more funds were available and more research done. We need to match that quality of treatment in the UK and that requires money – money is the root of all progress.

    But, everyone here knows that, acts upon it and I need not labour the point.

    Many years ago, there was a financial journalist, Patrick Hutner, who used to argue that “improvement means deterioration”.

    One can see what he meant. Last week, my wife bought two volumes of the letter Elizabeth Barrett wrote to Robert Browning and his replies. Often they wrote twice a day and the letters were delivered the same day. Today – if we’re lucky – first class post takes two days. Likewise, the NHS often falls far short of our expectations.

    So do politics in a grander scale. The League of Nations and the UN were founded to solve international problems and yet they’re as prevalent today as ever. It is ironic that it was the US who effectively founded the UN and yet these days Congress refuses to pay its subscription and the Administration bypasses it when it can.

    Nor – if I may stick to a health theme – have we made the progress we would have hoped to make.

    Our world has six billion souls. Of these six billion, one-half live on less than US $2 per day, and one-fifth on less than US $1 per day. I daresay no-one here this afternoon would hesitate in spending that sum on a cup of coffee. It is hard to imagine the disparity between the life of even someone on the lowest levels of social support in the developed nations.

    The rich nations do much to help – but not enough: far more is needed. Collectively they spend US$ 50 billion on overseas aid – an enormous sum: but less generous than it seems when you realise that Europe and America also spend US$ 350 billion on agricultural subsidies alone. A statistic that is even more bizarre when you realise such subsidies cut away the possibility of poor nations selling their agricultural produce – often their only export – into developed markets.

    It seems to me that long-term self-interest combines with common humanity to suggest that – if we are right to wage war on terror – and we are – then it is right to wage war on poverty and hardship as well.

    In helping others, surely we help ourselves as well. For, in removing grievances, we cut away the resentment of the “have-nots” for the “haves”.

    Moreover, if we do nothing, the problem will worsen. In the next 25 years, world population will grow from 6 billion to 8 billion. Of the extra 2 billion, 97% will be in that part of the world that has an income below US $2 per day. This is not sustainable if we wish our children to inherit a world free of conflict. Nor is it moral.

    In the 1940s/50s – after a different sort of War – the US launched a plan to deliver aid and rescue Europe from the devastation of that conflict. It was, Winston Churchill said, “the most un-sordid act in history.”

    Not even the wealth of America could do that these days. But, in a world of growing global security – and wealth at a level undreamed of by earlier generations – the developed nations collectively must soon consider another such “un-sordid act”.

    It will come – for it cannot be ignored. The question is when? Too late – and much unnecessary suffering will have been endured. Too late – and there will be little political gain for grudging and delayed humanity.

    But act early, act out of conscience – and not only will we foreclose on misery and hardship to come, but we will undercut the breeding grounds of terror that, at present, are such a threat to international security and prosperity.

    I am conscious that many may say – but you (that is me) could have done more when you had the chance. I agree. I did a certain amount – especially in reducing third world debt – but not enough.

    There are pleas I can make in mitigation – I inherited a recession, there was no money to spare and it was difficult to make the advance we did, I was distracted by squabbles over Europe and squabbles in my Party – but none of these is a sufficient excuse.

    As I look back, I should have done more. I wish I had. But the chance is gone. Now I am an older and wiser man and I hope to persuade my successors to raise their game. The cause is good, the need is very great, and action is imperative.

    Because poverty is not only an evil in itself: it also fuels despair and can be a recruiting sergeant for terrorism. At minimum, it offers a ready ear for those who wish to foster hatred against richer and more developed nations.

    As we look forward, we should assess the political, social and economic long-term problems which will beset us if the rich developed nations continue to get richer, and the undeveloped nations fall yet further behind.

    In some parts of the world, corruption and poverty condemn untold millions to a life of misery and hardship. Some may say: “Well, that’s their problem. Bad Government, bad economic decisions, bad judgements made this problem.” Well, may be – but is it really their problem alone? Hardly. Half the world’s population is under 24: can they be held responsible for the conditions in which they live? Surely not – and, in any event, the world as a whole is having to live with the resentment, bitterness and political hostility that poverty causes amongst those outside the circle of prosperity.

    Much the same argument applies to AIDS.

    There was a time when untutored opinion thought AIDS was a self-inflicted disease that could never affect them. It was, many thought, a problem for other people. How smug that was – and how wrong.

    We know better now.

    To date, 20 million people have died of AIDS and around 40 million more may now have the disease. Of that 40 million, 6 million may be near-death without treatment, and the harsh reality is that the vast majority of them will never get that treatment. They will die without hope and, too often, without comfort or care.

    No part of the world is untouched but the poorer countries bear the greatest burden and have the least resources to cope with it.

    The catalogue of catastrophe unfolds. In Botswana, life expectancy is below 40. In Uganda, one million live with AIDS, and one million have died because of it. In South Africa, one in eight has the virus.

    Many innocent children are infected in the womb or through breastfeeding and are born only to die young; others are orphans having lost both parents to the disease.

    The horror statistics roll on.

    AIDS has many nightmarish qualities, but one in particular that bodes ill for the future. The virus is cunning: the time-lag between infection and full AIDS can be as long as a decade. As a result, nine out of ten sub-Saharan Africans who carry the disease are unaware of it: many with the virus can therefore – unwittingly – infect others and often those they care for most. The implications of that are horrific: imagine how a man or woman must feel knowing they have imposed a slow death sentence on their partner. It beggars understanding: no-one who understands that could fail to be moved by it.

    We live, therefore, in an imperfect world. We cannot expect our Governments to solve all our problems.

    Individual endeavour is important. Sometimes – as in research – it is the most important thing of all.

    We cannot solve all the ills of the world in our time. But we can ease many of them which brings me back to where I started.

    Cancer is one of the great scourges of our time. It induces private terror in those who fear they may have it.

    We owe it to them to do all we can to find a solution: let me end by thanking you all for what you have done (and are doing) to bring this about.

  • Mr Major’s Article on Ireland – 15 August 2004

    The text of Mr Major’s article on Ireland, published in Future Ireland in August 2004.

    JOHN MAJOR:

    Once more the Irish Peace Process is stalled. The blame game will be back in vogue – so has all the hard work of the last decade been for nothing? I don’t think so.

    From the moment I arrived at Number 10, Northern Ireland was a priority for me: the issue kept bubbling to the front of my mind. And during my 6½ years as Prime Minister, it never fell from the top of my agenda. I held meetings beyond number at Westminster and in Belfast. Some were interminable. Some were friendly. Some were raucous. Some were hopeful. Some ended in walk outs. It was a panorama of protest and progress.

    Invariably, I was struck by the distinction between the personal warmth and charm of those I met, and the depth and savagery of the rivalries that divided them.

    The roots of the Northern Ireland troubles lie deep in history and have been exacerbated by generations of distrust, recrimination, hatred and outdated tribal attitudes. But, although the roots may be ancient, the perceived inequity of the old Stormont Parliament, and the divisive gulf between Unionist and Republican aspirations, kept mutual loathing burning steadily. Until the Northern Ireland Assembly was formed, politicians were literally irresponsible – they had no responsibility for decision-making at all – there was nothing to force them to reach a pragmatic rapprochement. The need for that was vital, which is why elections and the establishment of a Northern Ireland Assembly was so important and its suspension such a setback.

    Despite continuing difficulties, I have always been an optimist about Northern Ireland. There will be a settlement because there must be. If one looks back through the avenue of the past three decades or so there are many positive moves to justify that optimism. The clamour for normality has grown ever louder.

    Of course, “the troubles” are not just political, and nor is the solution to them. There are those within the IRA and the Protestant Groups for whom the nature of the political settlement is all important: but there are many others for whom criminality, sheltering behind a political cause, is a way of life. Such men (and women) have no wish for a settlement, no wish for peace, will do everything in their power to frustrate it and, if it were achieved, might peel off to join ever-more extreme splinter groups. Certain in the knowledge they will be isolated by a political settlement, they will continue to oppose it. These people – forever arguing, disputing, deceiving and distrusting – are one of the fundamental reasons why political agreement in Northern Ireland has been so hard to achieve. But when that political agreement is finally reached – and it will be – these remnants of humanity will be seen for the violent criminals they are and be isolated, caught and punished.

    To many it is baffling that – so long after the Peace Process began – there is still no settlement but this should not be surprising: first, because of the people working from within against a solution; and second, because that elusive solution is wrapped in a mille-feuille of complexity.
    There are two words that bedevil a settlement: “distrust” and “decommissioning”. Historically, in Northern Ireland politics, nearly everyone has distrusted nearly everyone else. Distrust breeds fear. More especially, it breeds a fear of making concessions and encourages everyone to hunker down in their established positions.

    By far the biggest stumbling block is decommissioning: the removal of weapons from the political debate. For the paramilitaries this is complex. The Loyalists – whose very name is a misnomer for their loyalty is more to anti-Catholicism, anti-Republicanism and anti-Southern Irish sentiment than loyalty to the British Crown – embrace many splinter groups often at war with each other. When they offer decommissioning, it is primarily as a lure to the IRA. In practice, any disarming is a token gesture since any weapons surrendered can be replaced easily.

    The IRA has a deep-rooted conviction that equates disarmament with surrender. Their philosophy is that “the movement” never surrenders. They argue that no paramilitary group has ever given up its arms unilaterally, and many in the IRA bitterly oppose any move to do so. I once tried to make it easier for them by suggesting they could destroy their own weapons. No-one was insisting they should be handed over to the British Army or be destroyed in public. I would have been content for there to have been independent verification of destruction and would not have objected if they had used the twisted metal to fashion a statue of Eamon de Valera. But the IRA’s suspicion is deep-rooted and ever-lingering: the response from them has been minimal.

    Even so, the IRA – like the Loyalists – toy with token decommissioning for public relations purposes. Such gestures are helpful but much more will be needed – not least to convince Unionists to return to the Northern Ireland Assembly and remain there. The underlying situation is not easy: the paramilitaries of the IRA have a psychological block to de-commissioning and Unionists have no reason to trust them until they have disarmed. Decommissioning is, therefore, essential though movement towards acceptance of this truth has been as though one were viewing events through a slow motion camera.

    To achieve a final agreement, we need the end of all preparations for paramilitary activity by Loyalists and Republicans alike. The end of paramilitary will being enforced on the streets. Above all – again and again – the restoration of trust.

    This latter requirement means all may yet hang upon the destruction of Arms. When a family has suffered a loss of life the psychological effect is profound: often there needs to be a period of “closure” before life can resume its normal pattern and peace of mind be restored.

    The Irish peace movement needs “closure” too: in this case “closure” is the destruction of Arms. No-one knows how many weapons there are – especially in the hands of the IRA – but the sum total is significant. It is probable that there are many tons of explosives in secret caches, together with heavy weaponry, rifles and handguns. All are a threat to peace of mind as well as peace on the streets and must be verifiably destroyed or surrendered. Tokens are helpful – but insufficient.

    For the people of Northern Ireland, we must continue to hope that their desire for peace will soon become a reality. But the question still lingers – will the paramilitaries deliver?

    We have yet to hear the answer.

  • Mr Major’s Tribute to Goh Chok Tong – 15 July 2004

    The text of Mr Major’s tribute to Goh Chok Tong after he left office as the Prime Minister of Singapore. The tribute was published in July 2004.

    JOHN MAJOR:

    Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong and I both took office on the same day in 1990, since when he has steered Singapore successfully for nearly a decade and a half. He soon became a firm friend and one that I continue to cherish.

    I have always valued my exchanges with the Prime Minister and his balanced and lucid views. Although around the world it has been a difficult period – politically and economically – Singapore has always been in safe hands under his leadership.

  • Mr Major’s Speech at the Royal Commonwealth Society Dinner – 20 May 2004

    The text of Mr Major’s speech at the Royal Commonwealth Society Dinner on Thursday 20th May 2004. The speech was entitled “Priorities for a Changing World”.

    JOHN MAJOR:

    Delighted to be invited here this evening and especially pleased to be speaking under the Chairmanship of my old friend, Emeka Anyaoku.
    Over the years, the Commonwealth has had many advocates but none, I think, more persuasive or more consistent. Both as Secretary General for 10 years – and since – the Commonwealth owes a great deal to him.

    It’s not easy to explain the attributes of the Commonwealth: part historic, part commercial, part blood ties, part romantic and yet, overall, rather ethereal. But – whether the attributes are ethereal or not – the attraction of the Commonwealth is very real: once captured, it never goes away.

    I came under its spell in the mid 1960’s when – as a young man barely in my 20’s – I went to work in Nigeria during the Biafran War. It was an odd introduction. I worked then for SBWA – now Standard Chartered – and, in the midst of the war crisis, they needed replacement staff. I volunteered and – as I was considered eminently disposable – was selected to go. Frankly, I loved it. I was stationed in Jos which was spoiling as it is lovely but I travelled the country and felt, at first hand the invisible ties of the Commonwealth.

    Some say the Commonwealth is a rag-bag cast-off of the Empire and of little value. I could not disagree more. Such people believe our world is just about Balance Sheets, Treaties and Alliances; but it is not – it is also about tangible and intangible links, and the friendly relationships of nations with a shared history. That is why – even in the hard-headed world of today – the Commonwealth retains the special affection of those who understand what it is and what it signifies.

    One indisputable fact about the Commonwealth is that it is very diverse – from powerful nations to weak, from highly developed to under-developed, from rich to poor.

    Sometimes the poorer countries face their problems in virtual anonymity: they do not hit the headlines.

    The other day I lunched with a senior Army Officer who told me a tale I should have known – and didn’t.

    A few weeks ago, the world was rightly horrified at the slaughter of the terrorist bombs in Madrid. But at broadly the same time, Uganda lived through a comparable loss of life. The so-called Lords Resistance Army attacked a large refugee camp in Northern Uganda and killed over 300 people. They seized children between seven and fifteen: the boys were taken to be trained as soldiers and the girls were taken for the soldiers. Publicity was minimal.

    Commonwealth leaders should consider how they can help with such problems.

    Let me now look at our world as it is – and as it will be.

    In the 17th Century, the English poet, John Donne, wrote: “No man is an island, entire of itself”.

    Today, in the 21st Century, we are all inter-dependent. There is no hiding place from events – even from those in the farthest corners of the world.

    And our world is turbulent. We can foresee some of the changes to come. Others we cannot. But we can be certain the world of our future will be vastly different from our world of today.

    We now live in a world without economic boundaries: once crumbling they are now gone.

    As globalisation spreads, the command economy has all but disappeared. As the unfettered power of Government diminishes, the power of markets increase. As technology grows, markets never sleep.

    Nor does the march of politics.

    In the last few years, we have seen a political revolution that is reshaping the political map as surely as globalisation has transformed business and economies.

    The most significant event of the last fifty years was the collapse of Soviet Russia.

    At the time we all believed the world was safer. It was: the threat of a nuclear exchange between the superpowers had fallen. What we did not realise was that this global security came at a price: it unleashed far greater regional instability and foreshadowed a shifting map of the world.

    For example, if the Soviet Union had not collapsed – and Tito had not died – would we have had the bitter civil wars in Bosnia and Kosovo?

    Probably not.

    If the Soviet Union had not collapsed, would the EU be about to admit ten more Member States – many of them formerly Iron Curtain countries effectively under Russian domination? Certainly not.

    If the Soviet Union hadn’t collapsed, would a coalition of nations now be engaged in a War Against Terror knowing that – to win it -the coalition would have to force out the terrorist cells from their safe havens in countries that had been in the Soviet sphere of influence? I doubt it.

    We are also in a world in which economic growth is tilting from West to East and yet – India and South East Asia apart, – the new wealth may be bypassing much of the under-developed members of the Commonwealth. The tilt from East to West is certainly not mirrored by a tilt from North to South, where the disparities in wealth and living standards continue to grow.

    If one looks around our world, what are the problems that stand out?

    IRAQ

    I don’t want to delve into this contentious issue tonight, except to say that it is very divisive and may cast a long shadow for many years. Similarly, Palestine seems impossible to solve and sets Nation against Nation. These disputes unsettle relationships far beyond the Middle East. In particular, they divide Moslems around the world – Arab and non-Arab Moslems alike – from America and Britain and (to a lesser extent) other developed Nations too.

    But these are issues for another time and place. Tonight, I want to touch upon two great social problems that are more costly in lives than Iraq or the Arab-Israeli dispute combined and will cause great long-term instability unless we do better in the future than we have in the past. I refer to poverty and Aids.

    POVERTY

    Poverty is not only an evil in itself: it also fuels despair and can be a recruiting sergeant for terrorism. At minimum, it offers a ready ear for those who wish to foster hatred against richer and more developed nations.

    As we look forward, we should assess the political, social and economic long-term problems which will beset us if the rich developed nations continue to get richer, and the undeveloped nations fall yet further behind.

    In some parts of the world, corruption and poverty condemn untold millions to a life of misery and hardship. Some may say: “Well, that’s their problem. Bad Government, bad economic decisions, bad judgements made this problem.” Well, may be – but their problem? Hardly. Half the world’s population is under 24: in no way can they be held responsible for the conditions in which they live. And, in any event, the world as a whole is having to live with the resentment, bitterness and political hostility that poverty causes amongst those outside the circle of prosperity.

    Our world has six billion souls. Of these six billion, one-half live on less than US $2 per day, and one-fifth on less than US $1 per day. I daresay no-one here this evening would hesitate in spending that sum on a cup of coffee at Starbucks. It is hard to imagine the disparity with the life of even someone on the lowest levels of social support in the developed nations.

    The rich nations do much to help – but not enough: far more is needed. Collectively they spend US$ 50 billion on overseas aid – an enormous sum: but less generous than it seems when you realise that Europe and America also spend US$ 350 billion on agricultural subsidies alone. A statistic that is even more bizarre when you realise such subsidies cut away the possibility of poor nations selling their agricultural produce into developed markets.

    It seems to me that long-term self-interest combines with common humanity to suggest that – if we are right to wage war on terror – and we are – then it is right to wage war on poverty and hardship as well.

    In helping others, we help ourselves. In removing grievances, we cut away the resentment of the “have-nots” for the “haves”.

    Moreover, if we do nothing, the problem will worsen. In the next 25 years, world population will grow from 6 billion to 8 billion. Of the extra 2 billion, 97% will be in that part of the world that has an income below US $2 per day. This is not sustainable if we wish our children to inherit a world free of conflict. Nor is it moral.

    In the 1940s/50s – after a different sort of War – the US launched a plan to deliver aid and rescue Europe from the devastation of that conflict. It was, Winston Churchill said, “the most un-sordid act in history.”

    Not even the wealth of America could do that these days. But, in a world of growing global security – and wealth at a level undreamed of by earlier generations – the developed nations collectively must soon consider another such “un-sordid act”.

    It will come – for it cannot be ignored. The question is when? Too late – and much unnecessary suffering will have been endured. Too late – and there will be little political gain for grudging and delayed humanity.

    But act early, act out of conscience – and not only will we foreclose on misery and hardship to come, but we will undercut the breeding grounds of terror that, at present, are such a threat to international security and prosperity.

    I am conscious that many may say – but you (that is me) could have done more when you had the chance. I agree. I did a certain amount – especially in reducing third world debt – but not enough.

    There are pleas I can make in mitigation – I inherited a recession, there was no money to spare and it was difficult to make the advance we did, I was distracted by squabbles over Europe and squabbles in my Party – but none of these is a sufficient excuse.

    As I look back, I should have done more. I wish I had. But the chance is gone. Now I am an older and wiser man and I hope to persuade my successors to raise their game. The cause is good, the need is very great, and action is imperative.

    AIDS

    So too with AIDS.

    There was a time when untutored opinion thought AIDS was a self-inflicted disease that could never affect them. It was, many thought, a problem for other people. How smug that was – and how wrong.

    We know better now.

    To date, 20 million people have died of AIDS and around 40 million more may now have the disease. Of that 40 million, 6 million may be near-death without treatment, and the harsh reality is that the vast majority of them will never get that treatment. They will die without hope and, too often, without comfort or care.

    It is a worldwide epidemic. The Caribbean, India, Europe East and West, China, Latin America – everywhere – has the problem. No part of the world is untouched but the poorer countries bear the greatest burden and have the least resources to cope with it.

    The catalogue of catastrophe unfolds. In parts of the Commonwealth, the problem is acute. In Botswana, life expectancy is below 40 – but for AIDS it would be over 70.

    In Uganda, one million live with AIDS, and one million have died because of it.

    In South Africa, one in eight has the virus. Many innocent children are infected in the womb or through breastfeeding and are born only to die young; others are orphans having lost both parents to the disease. It is a truly desperate situation.

    The horror statistics roll on. AIDS is the bubonic plague of our Age and – despite all that has been done – more is vital.
    AIDS has many nightmarish qualities, but one in particular that bodes ill for the future. The virus is cunning: the time-lag between infection and full AIDS can be as long as a decade. As a result, nine out of ten sub-Saharan Africans who carry the disease are unaware of it: many with the virus can therefore – unwittingly – infect others and often those they care for most. The implications of that are horrific: imagine how a man or woman must feel knowing they have imposed a slow death sentence on their partner. It beggars understanding: no-one who understands that could fail to be moved by it.

    What can be done? Much is in hand through the WHO, individual Governments, and the work of organisations such as the Clinton Foundation. It would help if the disputes between some of these bodies could be resolved – particularly over the efficacy of generic drugs as opposed to patented drugs.

    This squabble reminds me of the legend of Buridan’s Ass. An Ass, faced with two equally desirable bales of hay, starves to death because he cannot find a reason for preferring one to the other – yet either bale would have saved him.

    We must solve these disputes speedily and decide whether generics are effective. For while the squabble continues, the sick suffer and the sick die.

    But much more is needed. The world must focus more on this problem or risk being overborne by it.

    Money is the root of all progress but is insufficient. Education on preventative care, medical treatment, and support, is vital but so is a comprehensive approach. The G7 Industrial Nations should put this problem alongside poverty as a priority for all nations, and work with the UN to hold back and then reverse the tide of misery that is the legacy of AIDS.

    I don’t wish to disparage what is already being done but piecemeal contributions could be made more valuable by a co-ordinated policy.

    CONCLUSION

    Sometimes – when we look at current problems we forget what has been achieved – not least in the field of human relations.

    I was brought up in Brixton in the 1950’s – a time of mass Commonwealth immigration mainly from the West Indies. I lived in a multi-occupied, multi-racial home and I saw the fear of the unknown that affected so many people at close quarters.

    How wrong they were. Now, 50 years later – despite the presence of the BNP, despite occasional unsavoury incidents, despite progress that still needs to be made – the whole social flavour is different. We now have non-white icons in business, television, politics, the arts and we take them for granted. Prejudice and fear is in retreat.

    There is hope in that: and the Commonwealth can rightly claim much of the credit.

  • Mr Major’s Article on the Mull of Kintyre Crash – 13 May 2004

    The text of Mr Major’s article on the Mull of Kintyre crash, published in The Times on 13th May 2004.

    JOHN MAJOR:

    Some events are etched in the memory and return again and again, often unexpectedly. Early on the evening of 2nd June 1994, I remember being told of reports that a Chinook Mark 2 helicopter, ZD576, was believed to have crashed on the Mull of Kintyre. Soon afterwards, the crash was confirmed as was, a little later, the number of victims and their identities. Many of the 25 dead were significant figures in intelligence and security. It was, as Air Chief Marshal Sir William Wratten noted “the largest peacetime tragedy the RAF had suffered”.

    All this is ten years ago but, as I was Prime Minister at the time, the horror of the incident has never left me. From time to time the issue has resurfaced and, I think, for a good and valid reason: immediately after the accident, the RAF convened a Board of Inquiry and its findings were controversial.

    Under the existing rules of such Inquiries, negligence by the crew piloting the helicopter could only be found “in cases where there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever”. The Inquiry convened speedily and took oral and written statements as well as detailed evidence from the Air Accident Investigation Branch. Their verdict was delivered in February 1995. They concluded that the “most probable” cause of the accident was an “inappropriate rate of climb over the Mull” but that no evidence existed that either pilot – both of whom died in the crash – was negligent. This seems to me to be a fair judgement. Indeed, I do not see how any other conclusion could be justified since, if the cause could only “probably” be determined, then there were no grounds for a verdict of negligence which necessarily required proof of pilot error. The cause could have been something quite different and beyond any pilot control.

    When, as is the customary procedure, the findings were reviewed, a more senior officer disagreed that an inappropriate rate of climb was the cause of the crash. He believed that this was pure conjecture. Nor did he accept that the pilots were negligent.

    But this was not a universal view. In the final part of the Board of Inquiry process, an overview by two senior Air Vice Marshals accepted the Investigation Board’s conclusion as to the probable cause of the crash but did find both pilots grossly negligent. Although there is no doubt these senior officers acted in good faith, it is not difficult to imagine the distress such an outcome must have caused to the families of the pilots and – no doubt – those of other victims as well.

    The matter did not lie there. In 1996 a Fatal Accident Inquiry was held at the Sheriff’s Court, Paisley, that took detailed evidence over sixteen days. The Sheriff, too, concluded that it was not possible to be certain of the cause of the crash, nor that it had been caused by an inappropriate rate of climb. Once more, upon this verdict, no blame could properly be attributed to the crew.

    A report by the House of Commons Defence Committee considered wider implications of the crash – but not the cause. However, in evidence the then Minister of State for the Armed Forces, Dr John Reid MP, set out the MOD’s justification for the negligence finding. A subsequent Public Accounts Committee Report examined the finding of negligence, found it unjustified and recommended that it should be set aside. The reason for this recommendation by the PAC was that it had serious doubts about the quality of the helicopter’s upgrade, its technical abilities and its software. However, the Committee’s powerful case, and its conclusion that “it is impossible to prove gross negligence”, was refuted by the Government, and the Board of Inquiry verdict of gross negligence was upheld.

    Prior to the Government’s response, the House of Lords too – after considerable manoeuvring – had set up a Select Committee of five Members to consider the crash. They decided to limit their Inquiry specifically to the justification for the verdict and took evidence from the members of the Investigating Board, experienced Chinook pilots, other experts and the parents of the deceased pilots.

    The Lords Select Committee unearthed new evidence about unforeseen malfunctions in the helicopters, about the weather conditions which suggested the pilots would have seen the land mass (the contrary was believed at the initial Inquiry) and about simulations of the behaviour of the helicopter: all of these developments cast doubt on earlier assumptions and were not available to the Air Marshals when the original verdict of gross negligence was reached.

    In light of the additional information, the Select Committee found unanimously that the standard of proof necessary to sustain a verdict of gross negligence could not be justified.

    We may never know what truly caused this tragedy. It follows therefore, that there is no justification for blaming pilot error. To let posterity do so would be a harsh verdict that is not justified upon the evidence and is cruel in its impact upon the families of the pilots who perished. Soon, the tenth anniversary of this crash will be upon us: it is time to set aside the original verdict and bring comfort to the memory of the pilots and remove the burden that has lain too long upon their reputations and their families’ peace of mind.

    We owe justice to the dead. I am not persuaded they have had it.

  • Mr Major’s Speech on the Erosion of Parliamentary Democracy – 26 February 2004

    The text of Mr Major’s speech on the Erosion of Parliamentary Democracy, held at Huntingdon Constituency Conservative Association on Thursday 26th February 2004.

    JOHN MAJOR:
    Tonight has the air of times past and it’s good to be back.

    I miss the Constituency – I rarely miss politics. It’s changed. It’s too media driven and – often – too trivial.

    Everything is presented as all black or all white. Every event has to have a hero or a villain.

    We live in the era of soundbite and spin or – as I prefer to term it – deception and deceit.

    [Indistinct section].

    That is the essence of spin. It’s all reminiscent of the 18th century politician who died and caused his opponents to ask “I wonder what he meant by that?”

    Such distrust of politics is back.

    One of the advantages of leaving politics is that one can stand back from the daily controversies and see the bigger picture.

    There is much I don’t like about the present Government.

    It is more concerned with perception than reality.

    It prevaricates as a first instinct, not as a last resort.

    It is intolerant of opposition and illiberal of policy.

    All too often it is high-handed and arrogant.

    And – my theme this evening – it has made, is making, and proposes to make – changes to our Constitution that I believe are damaging to Parliamentary Government.

    This may seem abstruse. It is not. It may seem irrelevant to the average citizen. It is not.

    Our Constitution sets out the relationship between citizen and the State – and as such affects us all. Change our Constitution – and you change the rights and obligations of the citizen.

    We take democracy so much for granted in our country that we scarcely notice any longer whether it exists; how it is exercised; or the ways in which it is being undermined.

    The visible structures appear intact – mature political Parties; a universal adult franchise; free elections with a specified maximum term of Office; a two-tier Parliament supreme in authority; an independent Head of State; the rule of law; an impartial Civil Service; a free Press; traditions of behaviour that amount to hidden institutional safeguards and restraints. It is familiar and comforting.

    Unfortunately, it’s so familiar and comforting that we have scarcely noticed that the structure which supports it is creaking and diseased and in danger of collapse. The structures are still there but they’re being hollowed out. The erosion is evident from the top to the bottom.

    At grassroots level – the Party machines are moribund, poorly financed and often unrepresentative of the electorate as a whole.

    At the top, erosion arises if any major Party has no care for Parliamentary traditions and propriety; if its use of power becomes an abuse of it; if it resorts to character assassination as a political weapon. Our present Government has all these traits.

    When senior members of the Labour Party were investigated by the Parliamentary Commissioner, there appeared to be an organised attempt to obstruct the inquiries or to withhold proper cooperation. When the Prime Minister established a Committee to examine issues relating to Standards in Public Life he then refused to let his own key officials appear before it. When the Committee reported, he largely ignored the report. These are very murky depths that have added to the public disillusion with politics.

    The broad mass of our nation is detached from politics. Many feel a distaste for it.

    Turnouts at General Elections used to be around 80%. At the last General Election it was under 60% – with the “don’t knows” and the “won’t votes” scoring as highly as the winning party. This was no “blip”.

    The rot in our political system is evident in Parliament. For New Labour has been careless of Parliamentary traditions and propriety; and the Prime Minister’s famous promise – to be “purer than pure” – has not been kept. Consider for example the Ecclestone, Hinduja and Mittal affairs which have all been so close to the centre of power that there is a perception that New Labour’s failings may have influenced government policy. This charge is vigorously denied.

    But in the age of spin the perceptions are damaging. Spin is the pornography of politics. It perverts. It is deceit licensed by the Government. Statistics massaged. Expenditure announced and reannounced. The record reassessed. Blame attributed. Innocence proclaimed. Black declared white: all in a day’s work.

    This behaviour is a factor in the reduced reputation of the House of Commons. There are wider elements as well. Nowadays, vital decisions are often decided in wider fora: in the G7, the UN or – most likely – the EU. As part of this Government’s policy, Parliament has also surrendered decision-making within the UK to the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, the Mayor of London and the Northern Ireland Assembly. It looks set to do so to Regional Assemblies as well. Monetary policy has also been subcontracted to the Bank of England. Some of these changes have merit – arguably some have significant merit. But all of them are consistent in only one regard: they all reduce the power of Parliament. One by one its prerogatives are going.

    This has been exacerbated by the Government’s disregard, sometimes contempt, for the Commons. Labour uses its majority as a rubber stamp. Select Committees are ignored or suborned. Complex Bills are poorly scrutinised as the Government is bound to get its way.

    Since 1997, Parliament has been downgraded in more subtle ways, too. Major policy statements have been made outside it, or leaked, before any Parliamentary announcement. This may be a good way to control media coverage but it is bad for democracy.

    Parliament has been weakened, too, by the Government’s policy towards the House of Lords. If the House of Lords attempts to block or amend legislation, which is its legitimate role, it is discredited and attacked. Already it has been mutilated. The abolition of the hereditary peers was a populist – and to many, popular – policy but, for those who wish to see an effective Upper House, it was a mistake: it robbed Parliament of a revising chamber of talent and experience and independent thought. Hereditary legislators were a soft target to attack but, if they had to go, they should have been replaced by others with similar virtues. They were not.

    The House of Lords should have more power: there is much it could do. It could improve the quality of our law by pre-legislative scrutiny of Green Papers, thereby foreshadowing changes in the law. It could monitor the resulting Act of Parliament to see how it worked in practice. It could examine and take evidence publicly on draft Treaties. It could establish a Standing Committee on Ethics as moral and personal questions become more difficult to adjudicate upon. It could maintain a Standing Constitutional Committee … all this and more would be useful.

    I do not agree with the current vogue for a largely elected Second Chamber. Yes – it is democratic. But No – it will not be an improvement. It will replace nominated leading figures of substance from Industry, Trade Unions, Education, the Military, the Civil Service, the Media with elected career politicians who failed to make it to the House of Commons. We are in danger of replacing first rate independent minds who have made it to the top of their professions, with second rank politicians whose Party Whips will do their thinking for them. A pale imitation of the Commons is pointless and will further diminish Parliament.

    I understand the urge for the legitimacy of election but it is a poor bargain for electors: a less talented House of Lords stuffed with more professional politicians is the wrong prescription for our democratic deficit.

    If not election, then what? Prime Ministerial appointment alone is no longer acceptable (although any mechanism must provide for nomination by political leaders so that a proper political balance can be maintained in the Upper House.) We continue to need a system to nominate leading public figures to maintain and reflect the wide experience now available to the Lords.

    And, in my view, it should remain “the House of Lords”. Its members should continue to be Peers: to change the name would be pointless if it is to serve its traditional role as a revising Chamber and to withhold the courtesy of the title would be petty. Labour, given free rein, might do both.

    Further diminution of Parliamentary authority will be accomplished within this Parliament if the Government enacts the proposed European Constitution as a superior overarching legal framework. The legacy of centuries of common law would be subordinate to ambiguous language interpreted and enforced by European institutions.

    If the Government enacted this, any legislation should properly be subject to a specific referendum of the whole Nation – although Labour will seek to avoid it since they know they would lost the Referendum. Steadily, they are moving away from the instincts of the Nation.

    At the same time as respect for Parliament is in decline, so too is the neutrality of the Civil Service – now in danger of being compromised. The pattern of by-passing the independence of the Civil Service was set in May 1997, with the appointment of special advisers with authority over career civil servants; with the huge increase in the number of political special advisers ; and with the dismissal or forcing out of the Government Information Officers – the Civil Service interface between the Government and the media, and the guarantee of impartial and straightforward answers. The cult of spin was let loose.

    From the moment New Labour saw the value of spin, the truth became partisan. The outgoing Conservative Government was to be abused: no piece of character assassination, no calumny, no half-truth, no insult was to be missed. Nor were they the only target. Others who embarrassed the Government – even non-politicians such as the 94 year old hospital patient, Mrs Rose Addis or train campaigner Mrs Pam Warren – were all part of the shooting gallery. So too, at one time was the “psychologically flawed” Gordon Brown; and Mo Mowlam, who had committed the sin of being too popular. All suffered from behind the scenes briefing to serve the contemporary interests of the Government at the expense of the reputation of the conduct of politics generally. Nothing on this scale has been seen in modern British politics. Nor, to the best of my knowledge, have individual citizens – wholly unconnected with politics – ever been targeted before.

    Some months ago, after a piece of underhand dealing was exposed, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said “what was appropriate in Opposition was not appropriate in Government.” If one decodes this sentence, it means it was acceptable to spread any falsehood about the Conservatives in the 1990s because they were unpopular. Now, however, as everyone becomes familiar with the tactics used by New Labour, we are told it is necessary to move on.

    The art of misrepresentation for political advantage is not new.

    But what sets this Government apart is the scale and pre-meditation of its spin operation. The result is a cynicism now so deep-rooted among the electorate that when the Government’s spin merchant-in-chief said spinning had gone too far, the public suspected it was only spin that made him say so.

    It is fatal to the conduct of policy if the word of any Government is disbelieved until proven beyond doubt to be true. The erosion of trust has now reached the point where it is undermining the ability of the Government to call on the trust of the people – as recently, for example, on Iraq. New Labour cannot complain if their word is not taken at face value: it is their own behaviour that has brought this about.

    A few years ago, it would have been inconceivable that any Prime Minister’s Office could have been accused of distorting and misusing intelligence information to popularise the case for war and yet, whatever the reality, that has now become a widespread belief. For the sake of the future conduct of policy this impression needs to be dispelled.

    It is clear the Prime Minister has failed to understand the importance and power of the traditions, customs and conventions that have shaped the values of our system of government. The way our nation’s government works is not simply defined by the bare words and legal structures of legislation – it works because generations of Britons, in safeguarding their liberties, have established boundaries of acceptable behaviour and created rituals and rules that keep them alive.

    New Labour, apparently contemptuous of our history, has swept away centuries of institutional values. Rushed, ill thought-through constitutional changes have been introduced in the name of modernisation – changes that imperil the soul of the Constitution and leave democracy and freedom weaker and poorer. Even where there is a case for change – as in the role and stature of the Lord Chancellor, and the abolition of Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales – the Government has bungled it. It neglected to consult, announced the changes as an off-hand consequence of a Cabinet reshuffle and then had to climb down as the new Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs had to don the Lord Chancellor’s wig and tights; and other Cabinet Ministers became, after all, territorial Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales.

    The Government now proposes to introduce without consultation a Supreme Court to replace the Law Lords in the Lords and an independent Judicial Appointments Committee to appoint Judges. These policies will be railroaded through Parliament. They are fundamental changes that have not been subjected to proper consideration.

    All this is a mess. Gladstone once said that “The Constitution presumes the good faith of those who operate it”.

    That has been so until now. It is one reason we have had for so long an unwritten Constitution that could evolve rather than become irrelevant in a decade of change. But the present Government have undermined that good faith. They propose fundamental change without consultation.

    They are sweeping away centuries of tradition in the careless cause of political correctness.

    They have produced legislation on devolution that is deeply flawed and offered Scotland and Wales what they seek but ignore the consequent knock-on effect on the UK as a whole.

    I have never been in favour of devolved Assemblies except in Northern Ireland where, for decades, Ulster politicians had no responsibility whatever for policy. Yet even there I favoured only very restrictive powers. My fear was that devolution would lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom as a single entity and that this would diminish our influence in the EU and around the world. That has not happened yet: but it still might. That is why I resisted Scottish and Welsh demands for their own Parliaments. Time alone will prove whether I was right or wrong to do so but it is certain that the Conservative Party paid a heavy political price for putting long-term concerns for our Country before short-term party political self interest. We were pro a United Kingdom not anti Scotland or Wales. Alas, spin and soundbite distorted that truth and ensured it was not seen that way.

    New Labour took a more populist and electorally self-interested view and implemented changes that were poorly thought through: even Scots, proud of the principle of Home Rule, admit the reality of it has been a shambles. An overwhelming majority of Scots demanded devolved powers and, as I well know, denying them was painful. But – if devolution had to be ceded – it should have been done in a fashion that was not politically motivated to benefit the Labour Party; that was not a one-way advantage for Scotland at the expense of England; that ignored the knock-on effect across the UK; and that distorted the electoral make-up of the Commons.

    It was tactless beyond belief to appoint Dr John Reid, a Scottish MP as Secretary of State for Health in England. Even worse, it is wholly wrong that Scottish MPs are entitled to vote on legislation at Westminster affecting England – university top up fees is a recent example – yet not vote on similar legislation affecting their own constituencies: it is also a scandal that English MPs cannot vote on comparable legislation affecting Scotland. New Labour’s devolution was tantamount to gerrymandering an electoral system already biased in their favour by grotesque Boundary changes to constituencies. These have resulted in a situation in which the Conservative Party needs an 8% lead in votes over Labour to win the same number of seats: in a system in which vigorous politics offers the best safeguard of individual freedoms this cannot be acceptable. Parliament loses because Labour has chosen to ignore this anomaly so that it might benefit from it.

    The most dangerous erosion is in the trust and confidence with which our political system is regarded.

    Recent episodes have worsened this perception.

    The Hutton Inquiry was given inadequate Terms of Reference. As a result, it did not convince.

    The Butler Inquiry, too, would have benefited from a wider scope.

    The fact that this was denied adds to public cynicism because many who supported the war in Iraq are concerned that no WMD were discovered and fear the war was conducted on a false premise.

    Even those, like me, who continue to support the aims of that war, believe it essential to clear up the concerns that have arisen.

    The reason for this is not to seek a scapegoat: it is because if there is any doubt about the circumstances in which our troops were ordered into war, such doubt needs to be addressed, explained and cleared up for good. Thus, should our troops need to be committed to action by any future Government, there need be no hesitance in Parliament in supporting the Prime Minister of the day.

    As things stand at the moment, if the Prime Minister were to ask Parliament and the public to support him in committing troops for a new conflict, he might well be met at best with a hoarse laugh, and at worst with a flat rejection, rather than the traditional support previous Prime Ministers would have been offered.

    The particular problem that has been causing so much disquiet is the question of weapons of mass destruction and the ability to deliver them in 45 minutes. At the time this claim was first made, it was widely understood – perhaps erroneously – to relate to all weapons of mass destruction. It has subsequently turned out that it is accurate only insofar as battlefield weapons are concerned. When challenged about this, the Prime Minister told Parliament that he did not know about this important discrepancy – and we must accept that. It would be unprecedented for a Prime Minister to mislead on such a crucial matter.

    But his ignorance of the true facts begs other questions.

    Mr Cook and Mr Straw knew – so the FCO must have known.

    Mr Hoon knew – and so the MOD must have known.

    Mr Alastair Campbell knew – and so the No 10 Press Office must have known.

    If the Prime Minister’s Press Office knew – his Private Office must have known.

    The Cabinet Secretary must have known.

    So must the Joint Intelligence Committee.

    And yet – in all the discussions and briefings – no-one thought of sharing such information with the Prime Minister. Although this is possible – it is extraordinary.

    There is a second point.

    The Prime Minister must have had many private meetings with advisers from the MOD, the Foreign Office, and the Joint Intelligence Committee. Since he believed the weapons of mass destruction to be a danger to our troops in Cyprus, and to Israel, he must surely have consulted his advisers upon how to protect them. If he did not, he should have done.

    If he did, why did not his Private Office, the Defence Secretary, the Foreign Secretary, the Cabinet Secretary, the JIC, the Foreign Office, the MOD tell him that he alone did not understand what weapons Iraq truly had – and clarify the position for him? I recall, when I myself was Prime Minister, if there had been any possibility of my misleading either Parliament or the media on any issue – however inadvertently – my Private Office would have alerted me to this immediately so that the line could be corrected without delay.

    This complete failure in communication with the Prime Minister ought to be the subject of an Inquiry but it fell outside the Terms of Reference of Lord Hutton and there is no certainty that it falls within the Terms of Reference of Lord Butler. It is no wonder there is disillusion among the electorate.

    New Labour’s style of governing – and its adoption of spin and soundbite as its weapons of choice – has done immense damage to politics. Such black arts are political tricks, not statesmanship: they are not what we need in our complex world. It is hardly surprising that the electorate shrugs its shoulders in despair and moves on, blotting political involvement from its collective mind.

    The fate of politicians and governments does not matter: they are mortal and, in due time, are replaced by fresh administrations more tuned to the needs of the age.

    But if the institution of Parliament declines; if respect for it is lost; if politics is seen as a game not as the protection of our constitution and our liberties; if Ministers bow the head to advisers; and if the public loses its trust in the integrity of government, then we are in serious trouble.

    Is it too late for Parliamentary democracy? Has the watchman tolled the hour for our unwritten Constitution and Parliamentary system? I think not. I hope not. But the danger is clear and present.

  • Mr Major’s Tribute to John Smith – 15 December 2003

    The text of Mr Major’s tribute to John Smith, made ten years after his death (12th May 1993) in December 2003.

    JOHN MAJOR:

    THE RIGHT HONOURABLE JOHN SMITH QC

    It seems impossible that it is ten years since John Smith died.

    John was Leader of the Opposition during part of my time as Prime Minister and I learned to respect his skills as well as his principles. Although we were political opponents we were at ease in each other’s company and liked one another.

    I briefed him when appropriate and our exchanges remained private. I negotiated with him on Parliamentary matters and we often agreed. Where we did not, there was no rancour. After Prime Minister’s Questions, a raised eyebrow across the mace was a signal for us both to repair to my Office behind the Speaker’s Chair – for a whisky and an uninhibited chat that often covered the deficiencies of our respective colleagues.

    I was sitting at the Cabinet table in No. 10 when my private secretary came in with the news that John had died. It was tentative and uncertain at first but, sadly, was all too rapidly confirmed. I was immensely sad. John was a man of conviction and ability, with standards appropriate to high Office, and his loss to Parliament was personal as well as political.

    Would John have become Prime Minister? Yes, I think he would. We Conservatives had overstepped the normal span of Governmental life and were always likely to lose. It would have been a different form of Labour Government under his leadership: based on our private exchanges it would, I think, have concentrated far more on domestic matters and far less on foreign affairs.

    But this can only be conjecture: a malign fate has meant that we will never know. An anniversary tribute is well-deserved: John is still missed.

    December 2003

  • Mr Major’s Speech at the Annual Barnett Lecture – 17 November 2003

    The text of John Major’s speech at the annual Barnett Lecture, held at Toynbee Hall in London on Monday 17th November 2003.

    JOHN MAJOR:

    My theme tonight is change.

    We now live in a world without economic boundaries: crumbling for years they were finally smashed by technology.

    As the global economy has taken root, the command economy has taken flight.

    This economic wind is changing even the role of Government itself. Governments can wreck economies with bad policies, they can help build them up: but more than ever before the true engine of growth is private endeavour.

    As the unfettered power of Government diminishes, the power of markets increase. And technology has ensured that markets never sleep. We are now into a continuing revolution that will not settle down into a comfortable pattern: it will accelerate and grow.

    Much has changed in the last 15 years. Not only is the global economy a reality but one super power, the Soviet Union – for so long the glue that kept the West together – is no more. China has emerged from its chrysalis. World demand is tilting towards Asia and the economic challenges are more testing than even a decade ago.

    During much of the 1990’s the world enjoyed substantial growth with rising investment and low inflation but in the last few years, we have seen the flipside of that boom. None of the economic motors has been driving the world towards growth.

    There are bright spots. In the US, the economy is about to grow rapidly.

    Japan is showing renewed signs of economic life, even though her days of massive external investment are gone. Her potential is still huge, although, for the moment, she is merely limping towards recovery.

    China is a different case. She is enjoying rapid growth helped by massive inward investment and an inexhaustible supply of cheap labour. But China’s growth comes with a warning: so cost effective have they become that there is a risk that they will export price deflation.

    The political structure of the world is changing no less rapidly.

    When the Soviet Union collapsed we all rejoiced that the world was safer. It was: the threat of nuclear exchange between superpowers had fallen. But – in politics – the laws of unintended consequences can be harsh. What we did not realise was that this global security came at a price: it unleashed far greater regional instability.

    For example, if the Soviet Union had not collapsed – and Tito had not died – would we have had the bitter civil wars in Bosnia and Kosovo. Probably not.

    Other consequences were more benevolent. Freed from Soviet control Eastern and Central Europe re-embraced democracy and much of it will soon swell the free market of the EU which – within a few years – will stretch from Ireland in the West to the very borders of Russia herself.

    For the moment, there is but one super-power – the US. America is the most powerful political, economic and military nation in the world: no-one can rival her. But, for America, this is not an undiluted benefit: it brings obligations as well as rights. Problems as well as opportunities.

    History is instructive here. When Britain had an Empire, we were widely detested. Hundreds of millions resented our power and envied our wealth. Even as they paid polite lip service to our face, they rejoiced if we were defeated or embarrassed.

    Today, that envy, that resentment, is directed against wealthy nations more generally – and especially against America and Britain, her closest ally. It will take wise and generous policy to turn that tide of opinion.

    It is easy to rail against the mighty – and we may see much of that in London this week – and often a proper sense of perspective is lost. I strongly support the right of people to protect against policies of which they disapprove. But let them remember. America is our closest economic and political ally: without her might at a time of peril, we might not enjoy the right to protest at all.

    In the post Soviet world, two military-political problems loom large: the threat of terrorism and the instability of the Middle East.

    The war in Iraq was very controversial – but no-one should weep for Saddam Hussein and his regime.

    They divided Iraq with terror and left fear, suspicion and hatred behind them. A once rich land became poor. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis – mainly Shia – were murdered and ten times that number persecuted and driven from their homes.

    The aim of the coalition must be to bring stability to Iraq.

    This will not be easy. Ancient feuds run deep and each day terrorist attacks seek to make a difficult task – impossible.

    There are three main risks:

    (i) losing the tacit support of the Shia tribe;
    (ii) open conflict with Iran; or
    (iii) getting bogged down.

    All are possible.

    Yet, having invaded Iraq, we cannot turn our backs on it. We must aim to leave behind a free nation with a stable government. No-one should suppose this will be easy. It will not. It will be costly in cash and costly in troop deployment. If we cannot find the troops now, I fear we will need them later.

    But – and here is the conundrum – if it is later it may be longer before the security situation improves; longer before an Iraqi Government can be in place, and longer before we can leave Iraq. That equation – early troops and early withdrawal – or later troops and later withdrawal, is a harsh reality.

    One growing concern over the last few years – pre-dating the Iraq conflict – has been the growing division between much of the Arab and the non-Arab Moslem world and the Western democracies. A prime cause of this is the lack of progress in the Arab-Israel dispute.

    MIDDLE EAST PEACE PROCESS

    The question is: is a settlement achievable?

    Certainly, both sides need one. Israel needs security and recognition and acceptance by the Arab States: and Palestine needs a future. An active peace process is vital – without one there is a vacuum into which terror and mayhem step too readily. We have seen too much of that in recent years as a low grade war has simmered, always at the risk of becoming a full scale war.

    The outline of a solution has long been clear. And yet, prospects of achieving it have rarely seemed as grim.

    During the last year, hope has been hijacked as attitudes have hardened.

    Israel has faced a spate of suicide bombings that are part of a deliberate strategy. Wicked men have encouraged foolish young men and women to become human bombs in Israel. The carnage has been frightful.

    In a bleak year, over 400 Israelis have been killed. Many thousands more have been injured. For the third year running the economy has contracted, leaving unemployment at 10% – the highest the State of Israel has ever known.

    And Israelis notice that the Palestinians do not regret the violence of the Intafada.

    It has been bleak for the Palestinians too.

    They have seen:

    – their society fragmented and collapsing;
    – their economy all but destroyed;
    – malnutrition in Gaza rising to a par with the Congo;
    – 30% of Palestinians living on food handouts;
    – 60% living on two dollars a day;
    – and 87% of Palestinian families having one or more family members suffering from psychological difficulties.

    And Palestinians notice that Israel is unrepentant about occupying Palestinian areas.

    Out of that mutual despair, is there any scope for optimism?

    The essentials of this conflict have been unchanging for a long time. There is no new proposal for peace that will suddenly be seized on by all sides. The biggest change needed is one of attitude.

    No-one should expect trust to spring forth from suspicion. It will not be easy to wring out the compromises that both Israel and the Palestinians must make.

    PM Sharon has spoken recently of “painful concessions”; “a Palestinian State”; and “no military solution”. What this implies is unclear – and must necessarily be so – but it must involve compromise on settlements and the line of route of any partition wall.

    A reality check tells us also that the exercise of American power and American diplomacy is crucial to progress for history suggests it is unlikely that a purely bilateral deal can be done – especially now for the Palestinians are in disarray and there is no clear authority in Ramallah.

    A solution to Iraq may change the whole face of the Middle East but a solution to the Arab-Israel conflict would assuredly do so.

    TERRORISM

    This week there is unprecedented security in London. The fear is terrorism. Over many years terrorism has grown bolder and more deadly.

    On 9/11 it over-reached itself and led democracy to declare War on Terror.

    This cannot be a short-term war. It will not be won in this Presidency. Or the next. Or the one after that.

    Terrorism isn’t a nation.

    Terrorism is Al-Qaeda; Hezbollah, ETA, IRA, Hamas, Tamil Tigers, Kashmiri and Punjabi Separatists; … the list goes on. Groups that are secretive, diverse, with their money hidden as effectively as their men and weapons.

    In the mind of the terrorist, no-one, nowhere is immune: not New York, not Baghdad, not London nor even – you may remember – Warrington, where a few years ago – on a sunny Easter Saturday morning I shall never forget – two young boys aged 12 and 3 left home to buy Easter eggs for their family. They never returned: their tiny bodies caught in the eye of an IRA blast.

    The question is: is such a war winnable at all? With one proviso the answer is yes. The proviso is this: we are unlikely to eliminate terrorism entirely because as terrorist groups are beaten back they are likely to splinter into smaller, more radical groups, with more extreme agendas.

    But what we can do is cut back their threat, and lower their potency to a wholly different level.

    To do this, we need international co-operation: especially from countries within whose borders the terrorists take shelter.

    Many of these are Moslem which is a further reason why we need to improve our relationship with them.

    But we need to hurt the terrorists in another way too.

    We need to cut off the flow of their support and, to do that, we need democracy to tackle the grievances that act as the Recruiting Sergeants for militancy.

    These go beyond Iraq and the Arab-Israel dispute.

    We should never lose sight of the political, social and economic long-term problems which will beset us if the rich developed nations continue to get richer and the undeveloped nations fall further behind.

    In some parts of the world, corruption, poverty and the growing epidemic of AIDS condemn untold millions to a life of misery and hardship.

    Some may say – well, it’s their problem. Bad Government, bad economic decisions, bad judgements made this problem. Maybe, but we have to live with the resentment, bitterness and political hostility this causes amongst those outside the circle of prosperity.

    Self-interest joins with common humanity to suggest we should help. If we are right to wage war on terror – and we are – then it is right to wage war on poverty and hardship as well.

    In helping others, we will help ourselves. In removing grievances we cut away the resentment of the “have nots” for the “haves”.

    In the 1940s/50s, the US launched a Plan to deliver Aid and rescue Europe from the devastation of wars. It was, Winston Churchill said, “the most un-sordid act in history.”

    In a world of growing global security – and wealth at a level undreamed of by earlier generations – the developed nations together would be wise to consider another such un-sordid act.

    It will come – for it cannot be ignored. The question is when?

    Too late – and much unnecessary suffering will have been endured. Too late – and there will be little political gain for grudging and delayed humanity.

    But act early, act now, act out of conscience – and not only will we foreclose on misery and hardship to come but we will under-cut the breeding grounds of terror that, at present, are such a threat to our security and our prosperity.

    Let me say a word about domestic politics.

    We are at an immensely fluid time at present.

    The old verities can no longer be relied upon. Every child is no longer – as W S Gilbert wrote – a little liberal or a little Conservative. Or even a little supporter of old or new Labour.

    For generations our politics was largely based on a familiar combination of class, of background and an affiliation to one of the competing philosophies of socialism or the free market. For those political non-conformists who wished to plague both the main political houses, the Liberal Party offered themselves as a safe haven.

    All that is going. The old politics is dying.

    Today’s voters are less interested in ideology and more fluid in voting intention. They are bored with the old arguments and the familiar jibes. They are also puzzled because nothing is clear-cut any more.

    This leads to the widespread (but mistaken) view that “they’re all the same” and “nothing makes any difference”. The result is a General Election with a turnout of under 60%: in which the “don’t knows” and the “won’t votes” score more highly than the winning Party.”

    No-one should dismiss this turnout in 2001 as a “blip”, brought about solely because one Party was unappealing and another not yet seen to be ready for Government. The malaise is deeper and needs to be remedied.

    An underlying problem is that the Commons has been losing status for some years. Some of this is inevitable. Some of the powers it had have been lost to the impact of the global economy. The world has changed and vital decisions must often be reached in wider fora: in the G7, the UN or – most likely – the EU. The Commons has also actively surrendered decision-making making internally to the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, the Mayor of London, the Northern Ireland Assembly and – very possibly – a wide range of Regional Assemblies as well. Its decisions, therefore, are often less relevant to more people.

    To balance this, the Commons must look seriously at reform: and by reform I do not mean the pale-pink changes that have been made to “modernise” it. Many of these are for the convenience of MPs and I have no intrinsic objection to that: but they are irrelevant to the need for Parliament to re-assert its authority over the Executive and improve its capacity to influence long-term decisions.

    Our present and future Governments, face complex problems – the consequences of an ever more elderly population – especially upon Pension policy; the need for far higher education standards than we have been able to deliver; – the list is endless.

    None of them are easy.

    None can speedily be remedied. None benefit from the ‘yah-boo’ exchanges that so dismay the political onlooker or the character assassination that has swept into fashion.

    All need a strong, virile Parliament and not a powder-puff legislature dancing to the party games of yore. If the institution declines; if respect is lost for that; if politics is seen as a game not as an essential bulwark of our constitution and our liberties, then we are in serious trouble.

    My theme tonight has been one of change: let me try and bring it together.

    CHANGING WORLD

    In a world of bewildering change, the speed of medical advance is staggering and the demand for medical services is infinite. It will grow: the mapping of the human genome system will lead to an explosion of demand for preventative care and, where this is provided, to an increase in life expectancy. It will be common place for today’s children to live beyond 90 years of age. What changes may they see?

    As so often, the past may give us an idea of the scale of change in the future.

    Last year, I attended the funeral of Her Majesty the Queen Mother and, as I sat in Westminster Abbey I pondered upon the remarkable advances the world has seen during the 100 years of her life.

    At her birth, no-one knew of blood groups, of hormones, of barbiturates. Primitive typewriters, vacuum cleaners and household detergents still lay in the future. Marie Curie had not discovered radium; nor had Einstein perfected his Theory of Relativity. As a child, she would have remembered the amazement – possibly even disbelief – at the news of Count Zeppelin designing a machine that would fly. It would be twenty-five years before Lindburgh would pilot the “Spirit of St Louis” to Paris. Consider what has happened, within the period of that one very long life:

    In 1900, the Europeans were dominant.

    The United Kingdom, France and Russia controlled 80% of the world’s surface. Only Siam had never been governed by the Europeans.

    Even the United States was still a debtor nation, financed largely by the City of London.

    How things have changed.

    The Ottoman Empire has gone.

    The Austro-Hungarian Empire has gone.

    The French Empire has gone.

    The British Empire has gone.

    The Russian Empire has come – and gone.

    The US is now the most powerful nation in the world with China – after 3,000 years of isolation – on course to become her greatest rival. Europe is building unity on the back of 1,000 years of war and establishing a free trade area from Ireland in the West to the very borders of Russia in the East.

    Children born today will see the conquest of the stars.

    They will live longer, see more, do more, know more than any earlier generation.

    They will see the deserts bloom.

    See a genetic rebuilding of failing bodies.

    Live with technical innovations beyond our present imagination.

    It will be a world unrecognisable to their forebears.

    CONCLUSION

    Against the enormous changes that are taking place, we need a longer term approach to policy and an end to the travesty of “sound-bite politics”.

    Soundbite is quite simply a fraud: falsely promises an easy solution to a complex problem. Easy – no problem. Problem – not solved by soundbite.

    The events of 9/11 are giving us a masterclass in consequences. We need politics that confronts the uncomfortable. Politics that rises above the short-term and the soundbite; politics that is long-term; politics that knows it no longer controls all the pieces on the chequerboard; politics that adopts common ideals and rejects common abuse; politics that is directed to issues and not to personalities.

    I will read you a poem you may know and I learned as a child:

    For the want of a nail the shoe was lost.

    For the want of a shoe the horse was lost.

    For the want of a horse the rider was lost.

    For the want of a rider the message was lost.

    For the want of a message the battle was lost.

    For the want of a battle the war was lost.

    For the want of a war the kingdom was lost.

    And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

    Benjamin Franklin, 1758

    It is the classic illustration of how a chain of events can be triggered by one single incident.

    If it was true in the world of 18th century – it is even more true in the hectic global world of 21st century.

    This world is competitive. Complex. Confusing. And always changing. This is our world, and we would be wise to reflect with care upon how it is and plan for how it could be – for the possibilities are infinite and constrained only by our imagination and our endeavour.

  • Mr Major’s Article on HRH The Prince of Wales – 16 November 2003

    The text of Mr Major’s article on HRH The Prince of Wales, published in The Sunday Times on 16th November 2003.

    JOHN MAJOR:

    These have been dire days for the Royal Family. The “revelations” of a former butler have been followed by wholly uncorroborated – and deeply unpleasant – allegations about an incident involving Prince Charles.

    I have known the Prince of Wales for nearly 20 years and believe the allegations to be inconceivable; indeed, they are so outrageous they should never have been aired without evidence – of which there is none.

    They derive solely from a sick man known to be an unreliable witness; a man whose previous stories have been proved to be untrue; a man suffering from traumatic stress disorder; a man who has received psychological care; a man evidently in a poor mental and physical state who may not appreciate fully what he is saying and the pain and distress it causes. Poor Mr George Smith, the source of these stories, needs medical care not banner headline publicity and I am astounded that worldly-wise media outlets – whilst privately acknowledging the unlikelihood of the allegations – should have created such a storm. Ultimately, it will abate – not least because the claims are so fanciful – but there is debris and damage in its wake, together with further sordid cuttings to be drawn upon in the future.

    Moreover, these allegations have not been confined to our own shores, but have created ever more sensational headlines around the world. As it becomes clear they are groundless, what corrective headlines will there be? Precious little, I imagine: headline material is not re-visited when stories are proved to be wrong; nor is much prominence given to the fact that the claims are discredited as well as discreditable.

    I wonder sometimes at the motives of these tale bearers. What is it – money? The desire for publicity? Revenge? And why are such fanciful stories aired – is it the basic commercial need to create news and sell newspapers whatever the personal cost may be? How is it possible to ignite worldwide interest in something so obviously untrue?

    Are we now in a world in which peep-hole journalism will print anything – true or false, that is said by anyone – sick or healthy, on the grounds that the subject is a public figure and therefore the public has a “right to know”? What sort of “right” is this? A right to know of lies; a right to know of smears and innuendo; if this is the future, it is a bleak one for us all.

    When The Queen referred to 1992 as an Annus Horribilis neither she, nor anyone else, could have dreamt that members of Her Family would still be under sustained, and unjustified, attack a full decade later. Nor could the Prince of Wales have imagined he would still be a favourite target in the shooting gallery.

    The Prince of Wales does not deserve this. Throughout the whole of his adult life, public duty and obligation have been his backbone. Nor is this simply his perception of the role of a Royal: he is a man who cares – perhaps too much – and must be left bewildered over how his best intentions can so often be distorted.

    In areas where the Prince is open to criticism, it has been poured upon him in rich measure. No-one should imagine that his high position protects him: in fact, the converse is true and with each fresh batch of headlines, his critics become bolder and less inhibited by fact.

    Nor is the Prince of Wales the only victim of this on-going feeding frenzy: the pain and distress falls upon wholly innocent shoulders as well. Prince William and Prince Harry have lived through a decade of storms. Notwithstanding their heartache at the break-up of their parents’ marriage – as traumatic for them as for any other children in similar circumstances – they had the added torment of seeing their mother hunted and haunted by the demands of an insatiable media up to the very moment of her tragic death. Now they see the full focus of calumny turned upon their only surviving parent to whom they are so close.

    I have never written or spoken of the occasional privileged access that I have had to the Royal Family – but one small glimpse into their private lives might illustrate the concern I feel for the impact of publicity upon the two Princes. A few years ago, I called on the Prince of Wales early one morning. We talked over the breakfast table. Prince William listened avidly whilst the younger Prince Harry interested himself in the sports pages of the morning press. After a while, Prince Harry put the paper aside and both sons turned towards their father.

    There was not a shred of doubt about the affection on those young faces; even less doubt that it was returned. Here was no dysfunctional unit but a family bonded by the humour, teasing and loving concerns that characterise the very best of family relationships. Perhaps those who have no mercy upon the Prince of Wales might reflect upon the secondary agonies they inflict upon his children? Most especially, perhaps, Prince William. As he moves into adulthood his obligations as second in line to the Throne will become a greater part of his life. Having witnessed through childhood the malicious treatment of those he has loved most in the world, he would have good reason to look into the future with a heavy heart. It is a measure of the man he has become that he does not.

    I wrote earlier of the “right to know”: and there is much the world does have a right to know about the Prince of Wales. They should know he founded his own charity, The Prince’s Trust, to help the least privileged in our society. They should know this is a consuming interest for him and that, as a result, many thousands of young people are helped annually to overcome hardship and achieve their ambitions. They should know the Prince is a redoubtable defender of our Armed Forces; that he has the courage to speak out for unfashionable causes; and that he speaks passionately in private for those who cannot speak for themselves.

    Inside the public Prince is a private man, a sensitive man, a man who hopes for personal tranquillity. Despite a brave outward demeanour, he must have been wounded by recent publicity because – knowing it to be untrue – he will not understand why it has been given such currency. If that is too innocent, too naïve, for a man born to be King, then I much prefer such human vulnerability, to the knowing cynicism that so often masquerades as worldly wisdom.

    One day, Prince Charles will be King: the most visible presence of our Monarchy and the symbol of our Country to the world. To pull him down with false testimony is not only profoundly unjust to the Prince of Wales as an individual, it is also a grave injustice to the interests of the institution of Monarchy and our Nation as a whole.

  • John Major’s Book for the CPS – The Erosion of Parliamentary Government – 15 October 2003

    The text of John Major’s book written for the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) entitled “The Erosion of Parliamentary Government”, published in October 2003.

    JOHN MAJOR:

    THE AUTHOR

    The Rt Hon John Major CH was Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from 1990 to 1997, having previously served as Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was a Conservative Member of Parliament for Huntingdon from 1979 to 2001. Since leaving politics, he has returned to business in the private sector. He also lectures around the world and is active in many charities.

    The aim of the Centre for Policy Studies is to develop and promote policies that provide freedom and encouragement for individuals to pursue the aspirations they have for themselves and their families, within the security and obligations of a stable and law-abiding nation. The views expressed in our publications are, however, the sole responsibility of the authors. Contributions are chosen for their value in informing public debate and should not be taken as representing a corporate view of the CPS or of its Directors. The CPS values its independence and does not carry on activities with the intention of affecting public support for any registered political party or for candidates at election, or to influence voters in a referendum.

    CONTENTS

    Prologue

    The Decline of Democracy

    The Decline of Parliament

    The Politicisation of the Civil Service

    The Manipulation of Government Information

    Conclusion

    Prologue

    In the six years since leaving Downing Street, I have been approached almost daily and invited to express my views on the Government, the Opposition or the issue of the moment.

    Generally, I have resisted. As well I know, government is a tricky business and I have a degree of sympathy for the mistakes that are sometimes made – often for reasons not apparent to the casual observer.

    And so, by and large, I have kept my counsel and remained silent – even when provoked by former friend or foe. It has not always been easy but it has been right. The resignation of Alastair Campbell and the evidence revealed to the Hutton Inquiry have drawn attention to much that is wrong in the way that New Labour governs our country. But these, and the many other similar issues that have arisen over the last few years, are merely symptoms of a far deeper malaise: a malaise that is undermining Parliamentary democracy itself. I do not pretend that we have reached the point at which this is irreversible. But I do believe that if we do not act now, then it may become too late. In such a situation it is necessary to speak out. And – perhaps – it would even be cowardly not to do so.

    When style and substance intermingle in politics, substance must predominate: where it does not, the fall-out can be unpredictable and far-reaching. New Labour’s obsession with spin, with style, with perception, has given it great presentational successes. But our political system has paid a high price as, on occasion, have its own most skilful practitioners. Slick presentation has proved to be the forerunner of distrust.

    The Decline of Democracy

    We take democracy so much for granted in our country that we scarcely notice any longer whether it exists; how it is exercised; or the ways in which it is being undermined.

    The visible structures appear intact: mature political parties; a universal adult franchise; free elections with a specified maximum term of office; a two-tier Parliament supreme in authority; an independent Head of State; the rule of law; an impartial Civil Service; a free press; traditions of behaviour that amount to hidden institutional safeguards and restraints [1]. It is familiar and comforting.

    Indeed, so familiar and comforting that we have scarcely noticed that the timbers which support it are creaking and diseased; and are in danger of collapse. The structures remain but many of them are being hollowed out. The erosion is evident from the top to the bottom.

    At the grassroots, our political parties are shrinking in membership from mass movements to the size of special interest groups. The old convictions and prejudices that sustained them through the generations have been replaced by widespread disinterest and complacency. The broad mass of the nation is detached from politics. Many feel a distaste for it. They do not share the ancient tribal loyalties and look askance at the enthusiasts who underpin our system, attend party conferences, and work for the local party machine. W S Gilbert once wrote that every child was “a little Liberal or a little Conservative”. If any lyricist did so today, he or she would be regarded as seriously out of touch.

    Our democracy owes a great debt to grassroots activists. But that should not blind us to the reality that all the party machines are moribund, near bankrupt, unrepresentative and ill-equipped to re-enthuse the electorate as a whole.

    Nothing is clear cut any more. These days, New Labour ministers are political cross-dressers with a policy portfolio borrowed heavily from their Conservative predecessors and a hard nose for social policy that a Victorian capitalist would envy.

    No wonder our largely apolitical electorate is puzzled. But it is not the only puzzle. The widespread (but mistaken) view that “they’re all the same” and “nothing makes any difference” has led to a General Election turnout of under 60%, with the “don’t knows” and the “won’t votes” scoring as highly as the winning party. The campaigners for universal suffrage would have agonised had they lived to see such a day.

    No-one should dismiss the turnout at the last election as a “blip”, brought about solely because New Labour was unappealing and the Conservatives unready. The malaise is deep and is getting worse: it needs to be understood and acted upon.

    The Decline of Parliament

    The rot in our political system is not only at its roots: it is evident in Parliament, too.

    The behaviour of individual MPs is the lesser part of the mosaic of disregard for Parliament but it cannot be ignored. Parliament has always contained a number of bad hats. But their ruthless exposure over the last decade, aggravated by the unappealing public response of some of the miscreants, has been damaging. In the 1990s, the Labour spin machine in opposition, allied to elements of a receptive media, was so successful in labelling the Conservative Party as a whole with the sins of individual members, that it was able to damn the Conservative Government, too. But the appetite for scandal, once awakened, is not easily sated and, since 1997, it has repeatedly come back to harm and undermine New Labour.

    The failings of a minority of politicians should not be allowed to get out of proportion. Most Members of Parliament have standards comparable to the general public and the Commons is big enough to deal with the abuses of those that do not: far more dangerous is the institutional undermining of our political system.

    This arises if any major party is careless of Parliamentary traditions and propriety; if its use of power becomes an abuse of it; if it resorts to character assassination as a political weapon. Our present Government has all these traits.

    New Labour has certainly not been ‘purer than pure’: the Prime Minister’s famous promise has not been kept. Since 1997, New Labour offenders have been far closer to the centre of power than their much-maligned predecessors: moreover, there is a perception that New Labour’s failings may have influenced government policy [2]. This charge is vigorously denied. But the suspicion is vivid enough for it to linger since the age of spin has made reality of perception.

    And the perceptions are damaging. When senior members of the Labour Party were investigated by the Parliamentary Commissioner, there appeared to be an organised attempt to obstruct the inquiries or to withhold proper co-operation. This perception deepened when the Prime Minister established a Committee to examine issues relating to Standards in Public Life and then refused to let his own key officials appear before it. These are murky depths. It is no surprise that many of the public are disillusioned with politics.

    All these are factors in the fall in the reputation of the House of Commons. There are wider elements as well. While some of these are inevitable they have rendered it less influential in our lives.

    Vital decisions are today often decided in wider fora: in the G7, the UN or – most likely – the EU. This is understood broadly by electors but bitterly resented by swathes of opinion – with the European Union a special target.

    An antipathy to the EU is the Approved Text for many commentators, part of the Conservative Parliamentary Party and, re-emerging once again, Labour anti-Europeans. This is not the place to examine this phenomenon in depth, except to note that it does reflect the distaste felt by many people that decisions affecting the UK are no longer the sole prerogative of our Parliament. The fact that it is part of our bargain with Europe – we surrender some of our powers and gain some of theirs – does not assuage deeply felt reservations. The House of Commons is losing control over decision making and, as it does so, many in the electorate look on in disinterest, not least because of the peripheral factors that have brought politics into disrepute.

    Nor is this the only loss. As part of this Government’s policy, Parliament has surrendered decision making within the UK to the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, the Mayor of London and the Northern Ireland Assembly. It looks set to do so to Regional Assemblies as well. As devolution grows, the corollary is inevitable: power is sucked from the Westminster Parliament.

    I have never been in favour of devolved Assemblies except in Northern Ireland where, for decades, Ulster politicians had no responsibility whatever for policy. Yet even there I favoured only very restricted powers. My fear was that devolution would lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom as a single entity and that this would diminish our influence in the EU and around the world. That has not happened yet: but it still might. That is why I resisted Scottish and Welsh demands for their own Parliaments. Time alone will prove whether I was right or wrong to do so but it is certain that the Conservative Party paid a heavy political price for putting long-term concerns for our country before short-term party political self-interest. We were pro a United Kingdom not anti Scotland or Wales. Alas, it was not seen that way.

    New Labour took a more populist and self-interested view and implemented changes that were poorly thought through: even Scots, proud of the principle of Home Rule, admit that its implementation has been a shambles. An overwhelming majority of Scots demanded devolved powers. But – if devolution had to be ceded – it should not have been done in a fashion that was politically motivated to benefit the Labour Party; that was a one-way advantage for Scotland at the expense of England; that ignored the knock-on effect across the UK; and that distorted the electoral make-up of the Commons.

    It was tactless beyond belief to appoint Dr John Reid, a Scottish MP as Secretary of State for Health in England. Even worse, it is wholly wrong that Scottish MPs are entitled to vote on legislation at Westminster affecting England yet not vote on similar legislation affecting their own constituencies: it is also a scandal that English MPs cannot vote on comparable legislation affecting Scotland. New Labour’s devolution was tantamount to gerrymandering an electoral system already biased in their favour by grotesque boundary changes to constituencies. These have resulted in a situation in which the Conservative Party needs an 8% lead in votes over Labour to win the same number of seats; in a system in which vigorous politics offers the best safeguard of individual freedoms, this cannot be acceptable. Parliament loses because Labour has chosen to ignore this anomaly so that it might benefit from it.

    Parliament has lost elsewhere, too. The Mayor of London has responsibility without power and without resources in an experiment that, if left unchanged, will bring nothing but grief to London as well as to both present and future Governments. The Mayor needs either more resources or fewer responsibilities.

    Monetary policy has also been subcontracted to the Bank of England and could, at some future date – possibly in the next Parliament – find a new home with the European Central Bank.

    Some of these changes have merit – arguably some have significant merit. But all of them are consistent in only one regard: they all reduce the power of Parliament. One by one its prerogatives are going. It is debilitating. So are some of the changes within the House of Commons itself.

    This has been exacerbated by the Government’s disregard, sometimes contempt, for the Commons. Labour uses its majority as a rubber stamp. Select Committees are ignored or suborned. Complex Bills are poorly scrutinised as the Government is bound to get its way. And if the House of Lords attempts to block or amend legislation, which is its legitimate role, it is discredited and attacked. Already it has been mutilated and fears abolition.

    Since 1997, Parliament has been downgraded in more subtle ways, too. Major policy statements have been made outside it, or leaked, before a Parliamentary announcement. This may be a good way to control media coverage but it is bad for democracy. During World War II, Winston Churchill, took the Commons into his confidence and treated it with courtesy and respect – together with his personal presence as far as circumstances allowed. Lord Jenkins made this point in his recent biography. The present Prime Minister rarely attends the House, except when unavoidable, and votes irregularly: the precedent here is Lloyd George’s behaviour from 1918 to 1922. Such disregard extends to the traditional courtesies: informal consultation with the Leader of the Opposition – or between front-benchers – is minimal.

    Prime Minister’s Questions has degenerated to pointless farce. Its purpose was never so much to impart or extract information, as to embarrass the Prime Minister – or, in the Prime Minister’s eyes – to expose the inexperience of the Opposition. This, curiously, had a point. If the Prime Minister or the Leader of the Opposition could prevail in head-to-head combat, he rallied his troops and gained in authority.

    Now, the triviality of the exchanges has robbed the circus of even that benefit. The Hutton Inquiry has revealed the extent to which the Prime Minister’s responses and emotions are pre-scripted by others. Questions are rambling, often planted by the Whips onto pliant backbenchers, and partisan to the point of irrelevance. Up to a point this has always happened – it was not perfect in my day nor before – but never was it abused with the orchestration that pervades today. Critical questions rarely elicit an answer, or even rational argument, and are more likely to stimulate a patronising jeer or a party political rant in response. It is time to reform this farce or abandon it. Question Time to Ministers is becoming equally pointless. The loser, again, is Parliament.

    Parliament has been weakened, too, by the Government’s policy towards the House of Lords. The abolition of the hereditary peers was a populist – and to many, popular – policy. But, for those who wish to see an effective Upper House, it was a mistake: it robbed Parliament of a revising chamber of talent and experience and independent thought. Hereditary legislators were a soft target to attack but, if they had to go, they should have been replaced by others with similar virtues. They were not.

    The House of Lords should have more power: there is much it could usefully do. It could improve the quality of our law by pre-legislative scrutiny of Green Papers, thereby foreshadowing changes in the law. It could monitor the resulting Act of Parliament to see how it worked in practice. It could examine and take evidence publicly on draft Treaties. It could establish a Standing Committee on Ethics as moral and personal questions on human behaviour and scientific research become more difficult to adjudicate upon. It could maintain a Standing Constitutional Committee… all this and more would be useful.

    I do not agree with the current vogue for a largely elected Second Chamber. Yes – it would be democratic. But No – it would not be an improvement. It would replace nominated leading figures from industry, trade unions, education, the military, the civil service, the media and elsewhere with elected career politicians who failed to make it to the House of Commons. First-rate independent minds who have made it to the top of their professions would be replaced by second-rank politicians whose Party Whips would do their thinking for them. A pale imitation of the Commons would be pointless. And it would further diminish Parliament.

    I understand the urge for the legitimacy of election but it is a poor bargain for electors: a less talented House of Lords stuffed with more professional politicians is the wrong prescription for our democratic deficit.

    If not election, what? Prime Ministerial appointment alone is no longer acceptable (although any mechanism must provide nomination by political leaders with the intention of maintaining a proper balance in the Upper House). We continue to need a system to nominate leading public figures to maintain and reflect the wide experience now available to the Lords.

    And in my view, it should remain “the House of Lords”. Its members should continue to be Peers: to change the name would be pointless if it is to serve its traditional role as a revising Chamber and to withhold the courtesy of the title would be petty.

    The Politicisation of the Civil Service

    The neutrality of the Civil Service is vital and must be protected. Civil Servants support the policies of the elected Government but are trusted by politicians of every political complexion who acknowledge their political impartiality. This impartiality is now in danger of being compromised [3].

    Civil servants need to be confident that preferment is based on merit; and that the civil service ethic is not diluted by politically motivated appointments. The barriers between carrying out the policy of the elected Government and offering support to the politics of the majority party is often a fine one: but it existed and was honoured. It was policed by the Cabinet Secretary and Permanent Secretaries and was jealously guarded. Thus, when a senior Civil Servant spoke, he was believed. He gave the facts without gloss. This was our tradition and the need to observe the proprieties imposed a great and valuable discipline upon Ministers.

    Yet there is genuine concern that the present Government has imposed changes in attitude and structure that have undermined this impartiality. The effect of their actions, whether intended or not, is to begin politicising the Civil Service: too many Ministers behave as if officials should be committed extensions of the New Labour project.

    A similar mindset has led to the unseemly sight of Ministers, from the Prime Minister downwards, openly blaming the Civil Service for errors that have in the past been accepted as the responsibility of Ministers – and still should be. New Labour’s blame culture must, over time, damage the advice offered to Ministers and prejudice the loyalty and impartiality of the Civil Service.

    This changed philosophy is evident in Downing Street. The tone was set by the appointment of a special adviser, instead of a career Civil Servant, as de facto the Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister with authority over career civil servants. This position is crucial. The Principal Private Secretary is the gateway to the Prime Minister. He has always had the vital role of ensuring the proper flow of non-political advice and analysis from civil servants – alongside more politically slanted advice. He also has oversight of the priorities – and the proprieties – of the Prime Minister’s diary. Putting a political appointee in such a sensitive post has lost the non-partisan propriety safeguard and it risks exposing the Prime Minister. A case in point is the Prime Minister’s meeting with Mr Bernie Ecclestone over the issue of tobacco advertising and Formula One – and the quite extraordinary absence of a file note detailing the exchanges. Nor can it be right – or wise – for the superintendent of Labour’s ‘Blind Trust’ of donors in opposition to be the quasi civil servant who is the guardian of access to the Prime Minister.

    The position worsened further after those initial ill-advised appointments. Professor Peter Hennessy, the Attlee Professor of Contemporary British History was right when he said, in a Royal Society of Arts lecture, [4] that the present reorganisation of No 10 shows:

    …a special adviser atop all three segments of the rejigged No. 10 – Jonathan Powell, the PM’s Chief of Staff leading the fused Policy Unit and Private Office now known as the ‘Policy and Government Division’; Alastair Campbell, the PM’s Director of Communications and Strategy, leading a division of that name; and Baroness Morgan, the PM’s Director of Government Relations, heading the ‘Government and Political Relations’ Division.

    Reporting to Powell were not only Jeremy Heywood, the PM’s Principal Private Secretary (formerly the head of the Civil Service-manned Private Office), Wendy Thomson, Michael Barber and Geoff Mulgan but also the two new post-2001 election amphibians, the career diplomats Sir Stephen Wall, the PM’s European Adviser, who also heads the Cabinet Office’s European Secretariat, and Sir David Manning, the PM’s Foreign Policy Adviser and head of the Cabinet Office’s Overseas and Defence Secretariat.

    So the traditional – and deliberate – distinctions between No. 10 Private Office and the rest of Downing Street, and the Cabinet Secretariat from No. 10 had gone.

    The Manipulation of Government Information

    The pattern of by-passing the independence of the Civil Service was set in May 1997. The number of political advisers soared [5] as Labour stalwarts moved into the public sector resulting in 10 Downing Street becoming more akin to Labour Party HQ. One by one, the Government Information Officers – the civil service interface between the Government and the media, and the guarantee of impartial and honest answers – were dismissed or forced out. The No. 10 Press Office was politicised and the cult of spin was let loose. All the new political appointees were paid out of the public purse.

    Spin is the pornography of politics. It perverts. It is deceit licensed by the Government. Statistics massaged. Expenditure announced and reannounced. The record reassessed. Guilt declared. Innocence proclaimed. Black declared white: all in a day’s work.

    From the moment New Labour saw the value of spin, the truth became partisan. The outgoing Conservative Government was to be abused: no piece of character assassination, no lie, no half-truth, no insult was to be missed. Nor were they the only target. Others who embarrassed the Government – even non-politicians such as the 94 year old hospital patient, Mrs Rose Addis or train campaigner Mrs Pam Warren – were all part of the shooting gallery. So too, at one time was “psychologically disturbed” Gordon Brown; and Mo Mowlam, who had committed the sin of being too popular. All were abused and smeared to serve the contemporary interests of the Government at the expense of the reputation of the conduct of politics generally. Nothing on this scale has been seen in modern British politics. Nor, to the best of my knowledge, have individual citizens – unconnected with politics – ever been targeted before.

    In its hey-day, the daily line from No. 10 was ruthlessly disseminated. It was formidable propaganda. The Press became the receptacle of Orwellian attempts to manage the news. Favoured journals – and journalists – were given scoops. Others were frozen out to bring them to heel. Independent thought among MPs was discouraged – if not forbidden. Opinions were fed to the timid on their pagers. Some spin doctors crashed in flames though not without a legacy: the five Tests for the Euro, which the Chancellor would still have us believe are Holy Writ, were invented over a weekend to resolve a problem created by a leak from Gordon Brown’s then spin doctor, Charlie Whelan, an aficionado of the Red Lion Pub in Whitehall.

    If the old Government Information Service was bypassed, it was not alone. Advisers from outside Government have flourished. The wholly unaccountable Lord Levy became the PM’s special envoy in the Middle East: yet I doubt he was better informed than our most senior diplomats. When Mr Blair wished to visit President Assad, an envoy was approached to check the lie of the land: it is not clear why our Ambassador in Damascus could not perform this function which is – historically at least – the sort of thing he was sent there to do.

    Some months ago – after a piece of underhand dealing was exposed, the Prime Minister said – or was it his spokesman and does the distinction matter any more? – that “what was appropriate in opposition was not appropriate in government.” If one decodes this sentence, it means it was acceptable to lie about the Conservatives in the 1990s because they were unpopular, and the media played up to the tales being peddled. Now, however, as the scales fall from everyone’s eyes and as the public becomes familiar with the tactics used by New Labour, we are told it is necessary to move on. Once spokesmen said that they had nothing to add to the words of Ministers. Now we are apt to hear that Ministers have nothing to add to the words of spokesmen.

    The art of misrepresentation for political advantage is not new. While I am comfortable that, in my own Administration, we never set out to deceive, it would be naïve to suppose that no one will dispute the meaning and intent of specific statements and events: all Administrations face this.

    But what sets this Government apart is the scale and pre-meditation of its spin operation. Nor did it start when New Labour came to office: as we have seen, it perfected this black art when it was in opposition. The result is a cynicism now so deep-rooted among the electorate that when the Government’s spin merchant-in-chief said spinning had gone too far, the public suspected it was only spin that made him say so. And when he eventually resigned, few were surprised that No. 10 briefed that spin would be put aside. I suspect that their attempt to spin against spin convinced no one but the most gullible or the most partisan.

    It is fatal to the conduct of policy if the word of any Government is disbelieved until proven beyond doubt to be true. The erosion of trust has now reached the point where it is undermining the ability of the Government to call on the trust of the people – as recently, for example, on Iraq. New Labour cannot complain if their word is not taken at face value: it is their own behaviour that has brought this about.

    This breakdown in trust between the Government, the media and the public has been recognised in the interim report of the Phillis Review. And some of the recommendations that have been made are welcome – in particular the need to re-establish clearer guidelines between the responsibilities of civil servants on the one hand and special advisers on the other. It is also to be hoped that the appointment of a new Permanent Secretary to oversee the Press Office will restore the trust that was destroyed by the political appointee. However, it remains to be seen whether structural adjustments of this sort are really enough to eradicate a culture which has grown strong and deep roots over the last six years.

    A few years ago, it would have been inconceivable that any Prime Minister’s Office could have been accused of distorting and misusing intelligence information to popularise the case for war and yet, whatever the reality, that has now become a widespread belief.

    For the sake of the future conduct of policy this impression needs to be dispelled. In the case of the Iraq war, an independent Franks-type Inquiry – as established by Margaret Thatcher after the Falklands War – is the only way to restore the reputation of the Government. And yet, the Government refuses and points to the Inquiry being conducted by the Intelligence and Security Committee. Having myself set up this Committee I am well placed to judge that it is insufficient in this case. The Prime Minister determines what papers the Committee sees and has the right to excise from the resulting report anything he deems to be in the public interest. This will not do: when I established the Committee, I could not have imagined it would be investigating the actions of the Prime Minister himself. Nor that the Prime Minister would be judge and jury in his own cause.

    Conclusion

    The sorry state of affairs in the House of Commons is a by-product of two successive imbalanced Parliaments. A large majority in the Commons gives the Government, and especially the Prime Minister, very wide powers – in some ways, almost unchecked power. The system relies, therefore, on the governing party recognising the true temporary nature of its authority, and not abusing it: the greater the majority, the greater the need to respect the checks and balances of Parliament or – as Quintin Hailsham warned three decades ago – we become an elected dictatorship.

    I have seen three Governments at close quarters. Margaret Thatcher had a secure majority in 1979 and, from 1983, a very large majority. Once a policy was decided upon, her majority enabled her to be unbending and authoritarian. Such is her reputation. But, at close quarters, I never saw her disrespectful of Parliament. It was never ignored, bypassed or disregarded.

    After 1992, with no effective majority, the Conservative Government could not have behaved high-handedly to Parliament even if it had wished to – but I can state, with absolute honesty, whatever our majority, it would not have done so.

    But New Labour has had no such inhibitions. What the Prime Minister has failed to understand is the importance and power of the traditions, customs and conventions that have shaped the values of our system of government and provided its checks and balances. The way our nation’s government works is not simply defined by the bare words and legal structures of legislation – it works because generations of Britons, in safeguarding their liberties, have established boundaries of acceptable behaviour and created rituals and rules that keep them alive.

    That is why, through the generations, wise Governments have taken constitutional change gradually and, as far as possible, by consensus and after consultation. That is no longer the case.

    New Labour, apparently contemptuous of our history, has swept away centuries of institutional values. Rushed, ill thought-through constitutional changes have been introduced in the name of modernisation – changes that imperil the soul of the Constitution and leave democracy and freedom weaker and poorer. Even where there is a case for change – as in the role and stature of the Lord Chancellor, and the abolition of Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales – the Government has bungled it. It neglected to consult, announced the changes as an off-hand consequence of a Cabinet reshuffle and then had to climb down as the new Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs had to don the Lord Chancellor’s wig and tights; and other Cabinet Ministers became, after all, territorial Secretaries of State.

    Further diminution of Parliamentary authority will be accomplished within this Parliament if the Government enacts the proposed European Constitution as a superior overarching legal framework. The legacy of centuries of common law would be subordinate to ambiguous language interpreted and enforced by European institutions.

    Such legislation is likely because, in almost all circumstances, democratic accountability in Parliament is suspended until the next election: even a cataclysmic rebellion can be ignored. With an 8% lead in votes in 1992 – and more votes than any Government received before or since – I was rewarded with a bare majority of 21. Today, with an 8.5% lead in votes, New Labour’s majority of 161 seats is awesome.

    It is time for Parliament to reform, regain authority and increase the accountability of the Executive. Sadly, the reforms implemented by New Labour have reduced accountability and not enhanced it. The Government’s failure offers a real opportunity to the Conservatives: they must pledge themselves to enhance the power of Parliament and set out the manner in which this will be done.

    New Labour’s style of governing – and its adoption of spin and soundbite as its weapons of choice – has done immense damage to politics. Such black arts are political tricks, not statesmanship: they are not what we need in our complex world. It is hardly surprising that the electorate shrugs its shoulders in despair and moves on, blotting political involvement from its collective mind.

    The fate of politicians and governments does not matter: they are mortal and, in due time, are replaced by fresh administrations more tuned to the needs of the age.

    But if the institution of Parliament declines; if respect is lost for it; if politics is seen as a game not as an essential bulwark of our constitution and our liberties; if Ministers bow the head to advisers; and if the public loses its trust in the integrity of government, then we are in serious trouble.

    Is it too late for Parliamentary democracy? Has the watchman tolled the hour for our unwritten Constitution and Parliamentary system? I think not. I hope not. But the danger is clear and present.

    And so is the need for action.

    [1] – Such as consultation and if possible, consensus on constitutional change.

    [2] – As in, for example, the Ecclestone, Hinduja and Mittal affairs.

    [3] – Concerns have been expressed by Sir Nigel Wicks, Chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, as well as by other civil service bodies. On 11 September 2003, the Committee declared that; “The Committee is disappointed that core recommendations have not been accepted. These include … That there is a rejection of the proposal that Special Advisers should be defined as a category of government servant distinct from the Civil Service and that Parliament should set a limit on the number of Special Advisers”.

    [4] – “The Blair Style of Government”, 10 June 2002

    [5] – In 1996/7, the Government employed 38 special advisers, of which 8 were in No. 10. By March 2003, there were 81 special advisers of which 27 were in No. 10.