The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major KG CH

Tag: Afghanistan

  • Sir John Major’s Interview on the Andrew Marr Show – 16 September 2012

    The text of Sir John Major’s interview on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show, broadcast live on 16th September 2012.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Back here, twenty years ago to the day Black Wednesday blew a hole through the Conservative Government of Sir John Major – a man who had one of the most unusual family backgrounds of any modern Prime Minister. His mother and father – a man born during Queen Victoria’s reign – were music hall artistes, and Sir John grew up on tales of their unconventional life. Well music hall is in many ways a lost world, killed off by the cinema and by television and radio, but perhaps its spirit lives on. Sir John Major’s written a book about it all. We’ll be talking about that, today’s politics, and much more. Sir John, good morning. Thanks for joining us.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Morning, Andrew.

    ANDREW MARR:

    You called this book My Old Man. And that really is where it starts, because your father wasn’t just a music hall artiste; he topped the bill in some of the great music halls of the time. He was a substantial figure in his way.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Well he was in music hall for about thirty years, from 1900 to 1930, and he certainly topped the bill at the second tier theatres. I wouldn’t claim at all he was one of the greats of the music hall, he plainly wasn’t, but he and his then wife, Kitty, very dependable, very good, always working, on the bill with most of the greats at some time or another; and then formed their own show and then they topped the bill for a long time. So yes, he passed on many stories about those days.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Now it is a lost world, we’ll never know quite what it was like to hear these people because they weren’t recorded, or most of them weren’t recorded, until very late on. But just give us a sense of the range of performers who you describe in this book.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I learned quite a lot about it at my father’s bedside when he was very old and ill. I was his audience as a small boy, he was in mid-sixties when I was born. He would talk to me about his life on the stage and all the greats both that he had worked with and that perhaps he’d seen and not worked with. But music hall had a huge range. It might be singing comic songs – that’s the staple part of it – comedians, animal acts, monologists, black-face acts. Almost anything you could think of as variety today would have been part of music hall then.

    ANDREW MARR:

    And you argue that quite a lot of what we think of as quintessentially British humour from the age of sort of radio and television – you know The Goons and Monty Python and all the rest of it – has its origins in people like Dan Leno, some of those patter merchants on the musical stage?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. I mean if you actually look how they performed, what they did and what we know of it, a great deal of it has been handed down. Humour is continuous – what amuses the British psyche a hundred years ago tends to tickle it today – and, yes, it has been handed down. And they were astonishing characters, if you look at their background and their life stories, some of them are full of pathos, they came from nowhere. Some never got anywhere and their lives were full of hardship. Others had huge success, earned vast sums of money, perhaps spent it and then ended up dying young and often destitute. These stories are very remarkable stories of pretty remarkable people.

    ANDREW MARR:

    It struck me that they were quite like the stories of so many kind of would-be rock stars touring the country, hoping to make it, a few of them make it and maybe take too many drugs and drink and so on later on. But it’s also a bit like the sort of popular culture you see in so much television even now, the sort of dance shows and so on.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Nothing’s new and a great deal of it is repetitive. What I think is different was in those days music hall was the entertainment. There was very little to compete with it, as there is so much today, and it sunk deep into the British psyche. In the 1840s, for example, when it began, that was a terrible decade when the country might well have come to revolution. It turned revolution, potential revolution in the 1840s, into a patriotic roar of joy twenty years later. And of course it had its great days at the height of empire – hugely proud, hugely patriotic, hugely pro-British – but it fed mainly upon the lives of the people who actually attended those, and the great artists reflected those lives and sang back to them their lives and talked about their lives. It was empathetic across….

    ANDREW MARR:

    So quite hard-edged actually a lot of it, yes?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Very hard-edged. I mean some of the social commentary has the force of a pile driver, particularly artists we don’t remember today like Jenny Hill – very early feminist, talked very much about the lives of people who were downtrodden and why they were downtrodden. Well worth reading about her.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Revisiting her?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Absolutely worth revisiting her.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Okay. Let’s turn to politics rather more recently. I mentioned Black Wednesday.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    The music hall is much more fun.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Much sunnier perhaps than Black Wednesday. Nonetheless, that was a sort of existential crisis really in many ways for this country. Twenty years on, we are still looking at Europe and are particularly concerned about what is happening to the Euro project now. How dangerous do you think things remain because it’s you know the longest, most boring crisis I can remember?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Well there are two things that are inextricably linked of course. Firstly there is Europe and the Euro crisis, and then there’s the state of the British economy. You can’t regard those as wholly separate entities, you have to look at the two of them. If you take Europe first, Europe has continually evolved. It’s evolved a good deal further towards centralisation because of economic failure in Europe over recent years than anybody imagined in this timescale; and what you’re now seeing out of failure, not success, is the Euro core looking to integrate further, much more towards a federal structure.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Which this country, in your view, could have nothing to do with really?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Well if you recall you mentioned Black Wednesday. You might also have mentioned that at Maastricht, I opted sterling out of the Eurozone because I didn’t think the Eurozone would work without fiscal union as well as economic union, and so we are apart from that, thank goodness, and we will stay apart from it. But if the Eurozone, as I believe, continue to integrate over the next ten years, you’re going in essence within ten years – this isn’t going to happen overnight – within ten years you’re going to have a Euro core that is to all intents and purposes federal. Now if that happens to a portion, a core of the European Union, it changes that core’s relationship with the rest of the European Union. And if they do that, the rest of the European Union may feel that it is appropriate to change their relationship with the core and with the European Union as a whole. I think that offers an opportunity for us to clean up one of the long running sores of British politics, which is the nature of our relationship with Europe.

    ANDREW MARR:

    And that would have to be a referendum and so on if it was a treaty and all the rest of it?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Well if it was a treaty, of course it would.

    ANDREW MARR:

    It would have to be, right.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    And it would be a treaty in due course.

    ANDREW MARR:

    So therefore. Let me ask about the British economy directly at the moment because these are grim times. I mean this is the third quarter of technical recession, the Chancellor incredibly unpopular. You’ve been through a period where you know you are just buffeting through a hard time. What’s your analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the economy; and what’s your advice?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Well, firstly, it would be very surprising if the Chancellor wasn’t unpopular. The Chancellor has to do unpopular things. But I think it’s worth making the point that David Cameron, George Osborne and Nick Clegg aren’t imposing these cuts out of some malign wish to hurt people. They’re imposing these cuts because the last Government left the cupboard bare. The money was gone, the gold was gone. They had no choice but to take tough medicine, and I think people need to understand that is why they are doing it. That said, of course it’s unpopular and you must expect the Chancellor to be unpopular. Nothing surprising at all about that.

    But since I’m no longer in politics, I can say something that perhaps as a politician I wouldn’t. You mentioned Black Wednesday. Around about that time, Norman Lamont was taken to pieces by commentators for suggesting there were green shoots, but in retrospect, we can see that Norman was right. Recovery begins from the darkest moment. I’m not certain but I think we have passed the darkest moment and I will tell you why. There are some oddities in the figures at the moment. Why in the depths of this recession is employment growing, why is industrial production going up, why has the stock market risen? I could list a number of other things.

    There are things happening out there that will become apparent and we don’t quite know why or how. My guess – and this is something a minister can’t say but I can – my guess is in due course we will find that we pass the bottom, that that last revision of GDP when we had a 0.5 per cent reduction is less bad than we thought it was, and that we are starting on what will be a slow road to recovery. I think that is beginning to happen and I hope that is the case, but I believe it is going to turn out to be so for a vast range of reasons.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Meanwhile, party conference season, you don’t have to be involved in it anymore, but there is another Conservative Prime Minister, there are more kind of whisperings and challenges and so on. Of course he’s got Boris Johnson bouncing around, which you never had. Do you think the Conservative Party needs to calm down and settle down or do you think this is an inevitable part of you know the bad year?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Well, there’s nothing surprising about people being critical when times are tough. That is true in the Conservative Party, is true in the Liberal Democrat Party, it’s been true in the past. You saw those divisions in the 80s in the Conservative Party with wets and dries. You saw it in the 90s between, well, on the general issue of Europe. You’re seeing it again, it is an inevitability of politics. But I would have thought if the Conservative Party has learned anything in the last twenty years, it’s learned that regicide is not a good idea.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Well has it? That’s the question.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I think it has and I think the concept of people challenging David Cameron is an extremely good newspaper story, fills huge numbers of columns. And Boris is a very attractive and able and intelligent politician doing a supremely good job I think in London, but Boris isn’t in Parliament. Boris hasn’t said he wishes to become Prime Minister, quite the reverse.

    The belief that suddenly everything is going to change – you’re going to have a leadership challenge and you’re going to have a replacement of Prime Minister – I just think that isn’t in the real world. We aren’t. David Cameron is Prime Minister, he’s going to remain Prime Minister and he’s going to contest the next election and I very much hope he’s going to win it.

    ANDREW MARR:

    And so your message to all of those backbenchers who are constantly contacting newspapers and saying they want to kill the Prime Minister, they’re getting names on bits of paper, all the familiar stuff – your message to them?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    My message to them is look at history. Disunity costs votes. Unity helps a Government achieve the changes in our economy that we wish to see. There’s good for the nation, good for the economy, good for them and good for the next election.

    ANDREW MARR:

    And they should belt up?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Your words, not mine.

    ANDREW MARR:

    All right. After the death of Princess Diana, you were guardian for the Princes. Now they’re both back on the front pages again. These pictures have caused an absolute furore in this country and it seems that St. James’s Palace, the Prince is actually going to go to court in France to take action against the publishers and, who knows, also the photographers concerned. Do you think that’s an overreaction or do you think that’s fair enough?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I think it’s absolutely right. I think it’s absolutely right, so that people in future know where the boundaries should be. I mean the boundaries have plainly been crossed. I mean I don’t think we need mince words about these photographs. The way they’ve been obtained is tasteless. It is the action of a Peeping Tom. In our country, we prosecute Peeping Toms. That’s exactly what they’ve done and they’ve been peeping with long lenses from a long way away. They’re very distasteful and I’m absolutely delighted. I have often in the past been critical of the British media. I thoroughly applaud the fact that they won’t touch these pictures with a barge-pole. I think they deserve credit for not doing so and it’s a pity that other people overseas have lower standards.

    ANDREW MARR:

    And if you bumped into Mr Berlusconi this morning, you’d presumably have a few words for him too?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    It’s very unlikely and it might not be a very good conversation.

    ANDREW MARR:

    It might not be a very good conversation. The more general media climate of course, the British papers are waiting for the outcome of the Leveson Inquiry and so on. What would you like to see?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Well I gave my evidence to Leveson, I considered it carefully, I prepared it carefully, I gave lengthy evidence. I’ve no intention of either adding or subtracting to it.

    ANDREW MARR:

    All right.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Leveson heard evidence from every conceivable point of view. I didn’t hear it all. I’m content to wait and see what he recommends.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Prince Harry is obviously in a place of danger, Camp Bastion in Afghanistan. The Taliban claimed that they are attacking that camp and they have killed considerable numbers of people to try and get at him. Do you think it’s right that he is out there? The danger is always that he’s putting other people’s lives at risk. You know we understand that he wants to get out there and fight and do his duty, but is there a danger that by putting him into such a place we’re unnecessarily endangering others?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I think there are several points to consider. The first is that Prince Harry trained with his colleagues, he will wish to serve with his colleagues. He most emphatically would not wish to move. The second point, I think it would be a huge propaganda triumph for the Taliban if Prince Harry were to be moved. And, thirdly, I think there’s a great deal of an attempt to create public relations in the posturing of the Taliban at the present time. The army knows what it’s doing. It will determine whether there is a risk to those serving with Prince Harry, as well as Prince Harry, and it will make its judgements based on that. I don’t think advice from external quarters on that will either be well informed or valuable.

    ANDREW MARR:

    And there’s been some talk about pulling out troops early from Afghanistan. Would that help the situation in any way?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Well I don’t think it’s related. I don’t think you can relate that point …

    ANDREW MARR:

    Sure, to the Harry one. Sure.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    … to the question of Prince Harry. I think there is a credible case for looking at when we actually withdraw troops. The moment that President Obama said he was going to withdraw troops in 2014, the Taliban were on notice as to when the NATO troops would leave and a large part of the Taliban, if they have any sense, probably moved into North West Pakistan and are sitting there in that lawless wild west part of Pakistan waiting to come back after the troops have left. Having given notice of a date upon which we leave.

    ANDREW MARR:

    That’s difficult.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I think you have changed the game and changed it totally.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Sir John Major, for now thank you very much indeed.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    My pleasure.

    [Break for news. Andrew Marr asked if the spirit from the Paralympics could be bottled].

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I think it would be marvellous if we could. I mean, we saw some things at the Olympics that I think we thought we’d lost from the British character, the extent of the volunteers. The sheer, and I know it’s an old-fashioned word, the sheer patriotism of the British nation for the British athletes.

    I was fortunate enough to see a lot of the Olympics, and I think the moment I remember most was when the Paralympians came on in the opening ceremony, there had been an hour and a half of athletes parading. Suddenly the British team appeared, and as soon as the first British athlete appeared the whole of that 80,000 stadium were on their feet cheering. I freely confess that I had tears in my eyes and I don’t think I was the only one.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Were you surprised, because the Paralympics has always been, in the past, a slight downbeat after the main Olympics. This time the enthusiasm continued at the same level.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Absolutely. You will have forgotten this, but 27 years I was Minister for Disabled People.

    ANDREW MARR:

    I had forgotten it, you’re quite right.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    And I was absolutely thrilled to see it and there was a little vignette. I was talking to a foreign Paralympian athlete and he said “we have never seen anything like this. Who asked all these people to come?” and I said, “nobody asked, they came and they paid”. And they were thrilled with the size of the audience.

  • Sir John Major’s Speech at the Conservative Foreign and Commonwealth Council Dinner – 13 July 2010

    The text of Sir John Major’s speech at the Conservative Foreign and Commonwealth Council Dinner, held at Chelsea Manor Street in London, on Tuesday 13th July 2010.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    “Policy challenges in a changing world” – is a good topic.

    The inevitable challenge is change, which is brutally swift. Leaders of only a few years ago now seem distant history.

    One was Boris Yeltsin. I once asked Boris to tell me – “State of Russia” in one word. “Good” – “Not good”.

    Today, economically, we’re passing through in a “not good” phase.

    And, politically, although the world is safer from serious war than for decades, we face some intractable problems.

    The phrase “War on Terror” conjures up its own image: 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, suicide bombers. And yet – the term is misleading. What we are facing is not really a “War”, still less on “Terrorism”, but the military fall-out from the chaos of failed, or failing, States and the battle between Muslims for the soul of Islam. This is not a short-term conflict, nor one capable of a clear-cut finite ending: the chaos is complex.

    Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan will have a clear cut ending – or an early one.

    We need to understand the Muslim world is very different to our society. It embraces nations in which references to the Prophet Mohammed, or the Old and New Testaments, are part of everyday conversation.

    For some – the Salafists – Islam was perfect when founded and can neither be changed nor improved upon. Policy needs to understand the tensions between Christian, Muslim and Jew; Arab, Persian, Kurd and Turk; Shia and Sunni; between Monarchies and Republics; Secular and Islamic societies.

    It is a cauldron. It is not a liberal democracy. And therein lies reality.

    Let me turn to particular conflicts.

    Firstly, Iraq.

    When Iraq attacked Kuwait in 1990 the case for war was clear-cut. An innocent country was invaded and needed liberation.

    The second Iraq War was very different.

    Before it began, I made my reservations public but supported the war – because I believed what the then Prime Minister told us about weapons of mass destruction. When I was Prime Minister, everything I said in public was factually rock solid. I assumed that principle still applied. But I was wrong. It now seems there was little justification for the bellicose case for war that was presented. I was not alone in being misled. So was the Conservative Party. So was the United Kingdom.

    Today that war looks like folly. The defence of it has shrunk to the claim that Saddam Hussein was a bad man, who mistreated his nation, and the world is better off without him.

    That is true. But others are bad, too – and mistreat their nations – yet we don’t invade their countries or bomb them from 30,000 feet. It may be that the Labour Government acted in good faith. Judgement on that can be left to history.

    But, I observe now – there are lessons: war should be the last resort, entered into only when circumstances compel it. And secondly: we now have on-going responsibilities to help rebuild Iraq that we cannot ignore.

    Afghanistan

    We have now been at war in Afghanistan for eight years – with no sign of an ending. Inevitably there is war weariness – made worse by the depressing rise in casualties.

    Afghanistan isn’t a war that can easily be “won”, but nor can it be ignored: we are bound to it by necessity.

    And it is easy to see why.

    The war has spread into Pakistan – a Western ally and a nuclear power where Taleban and Jihadist influence has been growing.

    The Afghanistan campaign is now, arguably, not one, but several intertwined conflicts including a power struggle between Jihadists and the Pakistan Government.

    As the conflict becomes more messy and intractable, it is understandable that some feel we should bring the troops home – as Canada and the Netherlands plan to do in 2011.

    But not yet. Too much is at stake. We need patience and commitment for what could yet be a long military and civil campaign: the alternative is to lose the struggle, boost terror, undermine American and British prestige, and place Pakistan at risk. We did not seek this war, but we cannot – either morally or safely – walk away from it.

    The best exit strategy is victory. If that is unobtainable – diplomacy. We may yet have to talk to the Taliban.

    Iran

    Churchill once referred to Russia as “A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”.

    Much the same could be said of Iran today. In the year since the flawed re election of Ahmadinejad, there has been widespread internal dissent by hundreds of thousands of individual Iranians. There have been marches, coded speeches, intellectual dissent, as liberty has raised its voice. The regime has responded with repression but, like others before them, they will find that the demand for change, for something better, for a free and open society, is impossible to smother forever. You cannot arrest freedom and keep it in jail.

    The fear of a nuclear Iran is real. If she obtains a weapon, the risk of proliferation is high.

    Why is Iran doing this? The economy is in a mess. The currency is weak. Inflation, interest rates and unemployment are high. It’s a sad comedown for a nation that was a great Empire, when we lived in mud huts.

    Nothing is explicable without understanding that Iran is a nationalist and hard-line regime. The real source of power is the Supreme Leader, backed by the Revolutionary Guards, the Army, the Intelligence Services and the Police. The President, Ahmadinejad – so often the face of Iran – is a secondary figure. He is not the decisive decision-maker. Too many people over-react to his provocative remarks without realising his subordinate position. He is the Apprentice, not the Sorcerer.

    What should we do? First, remember the regime is not the nation – as the internal dissent vividly makes clear. Even so, while the clerical regime survives, we must deal with it. It is possible negotiations may improve relations; and we should continue to try. But, because of the threat she poses, we must supplement dialogue with incentives and sanctions.

    In any event, adding a third military conflict after Iraq and Afghanistan is very unattractive – even if we cannot rule it out. But, for the time being, the sanctions applied last month seem the right way forward. We can only hope they prove sufficient.

    Arab-Israel

    The Arab/Israeli dispute colours the view of the Middle East. It spills beyond its own borders and has scarred politics for decades. And is it not absurd that we know the two-State solution we seek, but cannot turn it into reality? Morality, as well as practicality, says we need a solution.

    After several decades, a bilateral negotiated settlement is still far away: many wonder if it will ever be possible. Attempts at incremental agreements – “confidence building” in the jargon – have failed again and again. Peace negotiations resemble nothing so much as the mating of the Black Widow Spider. Once the dance is over, death and destruction inevitably follow. How often we have seen that, and how damaging it is.

    The present situation is close to stalemate. Palestinians are split. Secular Fatah control the West Bank. Islamic Hamas rule in Gaza. Hamas deny the right of Israel to even exist. They will not renounce violence nor accept previous agreements made by Palestinian negotiators.

    Is there a solution? Yes, of course – the obvious one, a negotiated settlement. But, if that cannot be achieved, if negotiators from Israel and the Palestinians cannot – or will not – make the concessions necessary to compromise, what then?

    Can the international community allow this dispute to run on and on forever – or will the time come when they have no choice other than to press their own ideas for a settlement?

    Understandably, the protagonists would hate this: but, if both sides take positions that impede progress, what alternative exists?

    Will this be difficult? Of course it will. It is a gamble, a high risk toss of the coin, and one that requires great political courage, especially in

    Washington.

    Let me turn to some unconventional challenges.

    Firstly, science.

    The first integrated circuit – invented by Jack Kilby in America in 1958 – proved to be the fore-runner of silicon chips containing – literally – billions of microscopic circuit elements. Nothing in the 20th century has so accelerated change; it led to the computer revolution; to the Digital Age.

    Without that circuit there would be no Silicon Valley; no Internet; no laptop; no Google; no iPods; no Blackberrys, no PlayStations – and none of the hundreds of millions of jobs they have created. Who knows what challenges lie ahead – perhaps as a result of the particle beams circulating in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

    As science changes how we live, medical science is changing the quality and length of our lives. A hundred years ago, no-one knew of blood groups, hormones or barbiturates. Since then, medicine has given birth to whole new industries. New technologies are delivering better drugs, healthy food, new pesticides, the control of pollution, and advances in forensic medicine.

    Technology and medicine are old partners. The first man to assert that blood circulates and is pumped from the heart was William Harvey.

    But not until the invention of the microscope in the 1650s was this verified by the discovery of the tiny connections between arteries and veins.

    In a modern parallel, scientists are examining how to combine computer chip technology with pharmaceutical research so they can target drugs to treat specific parts of the body. Imagine – for example – chemotherapy with only minimal side-effects.

    Such science is leading a revolution in medical care: advances in engineering techniques have given us insulin pumps for diabetes; cochlea implants for deafness; and there are realistic prospects of repairing nerve cells for sufferers of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. It may soon be possible to replace heart muscle cells.

    A few years ago, all this would have seemed like Black Magic. Soon, fantasy will become reality, with commercial challenges that are simply staggering.

    Many challenges also offer opportunities. At the birth of Christ, world population was – probably – 300 million. By 1900 – 19 centuries later – it had grown by something over one billion. We now grow by nearly one billion every decade.

    World population is projected to reach 8 or even 9 billion by 2050. This is like absorbing two more nations the size of China. It offers social threats and economic opportunities.

    These are just a few of the challenges in our post recession world.

    One certainty: many countries borrowing money – from markets, one another, International Financial Institutions. Not always straightforward.

    Inevitably, there are many challenges I have not touched upon: the danger of nuclear or biological terrorism; the insecurities created by the arc of uncertainty from Syria to Pakistan; the enigma of Russian policy-making.

    All are formidable – but let me add a little balance: pre-financial crisis, fifteen years of high growth improved the quality of life for hundreds of millions of people.

    Investment across nations minimises the risk of wars. Life expectancy is rising.

    China and the US have developed a peaceful relationship. Japan and China are repairing old scars. Democracy is expanding. Poor, forgotten Africa is growing. Europe has moved the free market eastwards and southwards.

    In a preface to some famous essays, an English philosopher flatteringly observed to his patron that “You have planted things that are likely to last”.

    So have we – in our own time. The Free Market. The Global Market. Democracy. A Union across Europe. The concept of supra-national co-operation. All gifts from the West to the world – with the UK as a principal donor.

    It is a record of which to be proud.

    But what remains to be achieved is greater yet, and the challenges will go on and on.

  • Sir John Major’s Speech at the Conservative Middle East Council Dinner – 16 June 2010

    The text of Sir John Major’s speech at the Conservative Middle East Council Dinner, held at Claridge’s Ballroom on Wednesday 16th June 2010.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Your Excellencies, My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen,

    Delighted to be here this evening. As I look around this gathering, I see new Ministers who face a herculean task, and old colleagues like Dennis Walters, Founder of this Council. I also see my old friend, Ken Clarke, who I am delighted to see back in Government. And, above all, distinguished Ambassadors representing our friends and allies in the Middle East. It is good to see you all.

    These days, I travel for almost six months a year. I marvel at the growth in the Middle East. I see the huge opportunities that are still to come. But, too often, I am told on my travels: “We see the French, the Germans, the Chinese – where are the British?”. I am delighted David Cameron and William Hague have re-stated our commitment to the wider region. We must never allow old friends to become distant friends.

    First, a warning: all over the world Governments have their own cautious language when engaged in diplomacy. Often what is not said is as important – if not more so – than what is said.

    Tonight you will need no interpretive skills: I speak solely for myself, and having the freedom to say exactly what I think, in the way that I wish, is one of the delights of not being in Government.

    Iraq

    When Iraq attacked Kuwait in 1990 – without cause or justification – the case for war was clear-cut. An innocent country was invaded and needed liberation. And when it was over we had a further responsibility: to protect the Kurds from genocide.

    The second Iraq War was very different.

    Before it began, I made my reservations public but supported the war – because I believed what the then Prime Minister told us about weapons of mass destruction. When I was Prime Minister, everything I said in public was factually rock solid. I assumed that principle still applied. But I was wrong. It now seems there was little justification for the bellicose case for war that was presented. I was not alone in being misled. So was the Conservative Party. So was the United Kingdom.

    Today that war looks like folly. The defence of it has shrunk to the claim that Saddam Hussein was a bad man, who mistreated his nation, and the world is better off without him.

    That is true. But others are bad, too – and mistreat their nations – yet we don’t invade their countries or bomb them from 30,000 feet. It may be that the Labour Government acted in good faith. Judgement on that can be left to history.

    But, I observe now – there are lessons: war should be the last resort, entered into only when circumstances compel it. And secondly: we now have on-going responsibilities to help rebuild Iraq that we cannot ignore.

    Afghanistan

    We have now been at war in Afghanistan for eight years – with no sign of an ending. Inevitably there is war weariness – made worse by the depressing rise in casualties. Poor political direction has dogged this mission from the outset. The Labour Government hoped “not a shot would be fired” but 298 British dead mock that naivety. For too long, troops in the field were ill-equipped: that, thankfully, is at last corrected and I hope they now will have all the support they need – in action and on their return home.

    Afghanistan is not a war that can easily be “won”, but nor can it be ignored: we are bound to it by necessity.

    And it is easy to see why.

    The war has spread into Pakistan – a Western ally and a nuclear power where Taleban and Jihadist influence has been growing.

    The Afghanistan campaign is now, arguably, not one, but several intertwined conflicts including a power struggle between Jihadists and the Pakistan Government.

    As the conflict becomes more messy and intractable, it is understandable that some feel we should bring the troops home – as Canada and the Netherlands plan to do in 2011.

    But not yet. Too much is at stake. We need patience and commitment for what could yet be a long military and civil campaign: the alternative is to lose the struggle, boost terror, undermine American and British prestige, and place Pakistan at risk. We did not seek this war, but we cannot – either morally or safely – walk away from it.

    The best exit strategy is victory. If that is unobtainable – diplomacy. We may yet have to talk to the Taliban.

    Arab-Israel

    The Arab/Israeli dispute colours the view of the Middle East. It spills beyond its own borders and has scarred politics for decades. And is it not absurd that we know the two-State solution we seek, but cannot turn it into reality? Morality, as well as practicality, says we need a solution.

    After several decades, a bilateral negotiated settlement is still far away: many wonder if it will ever be possible. Attempts at incremental agreements – “confidence building” in the jargon – have failed again and again. Peace negotiations resemble nothing so much as the mating of the Black Widow Spider. Once the dance is over, death and destruction inevitably follow. How often we have seen that, and how damaging it is.

    The present situation is close to stalemate. Palestinians are split. Secular Fatah control the West Bank. Islamic Hamas rule in Gaza. Hamas deny the right of Israel to even exist. They will not renounce violence nor accept previous agreements made by Palestinian negotiators.
    In Jerusalem, the situation on the ground is constantly worsening. Three old religions and one historic City stand at the heart of the dilemma. Both Israelis and Palestinians see different parts of Jerusalem as their legitimate capital, yet illegal settlement growth in East Jerusalem is absorbing it into West Jerusalem and making it difficult to see how a peaceful division of the City could ever be possible. Other policies are forcing Palestinians to move. Plainly, this inhibits successful negotiations.

    In recent months, Israel has upset even her strongest allies. The murder of a Hamas commander in Dubai and the raid on aid ships heading for Gaza were diplomatic disasters. So, frankly, is the Gaza blockade because it is creating growing support for Hamas at the expense of Fatah – which is not remotely in Israel’s self-interest. Israeli opinion is puzzled. It resents criticism because it cannot understand why much of the world seems more tolerant of Hamas misbehaviour than Israeli action. I can explain this conundrum: it is that the world expects far more of Israel, a democratic State, than Hamas, a terrorist organisation. If Israel reaches out to her friends, she will receive support: if she does not, she will limit their tolerance of her actions.

    Is there a solution? Yes, of course – the obvious one, a negotiated settlement. But, if that cannot be achieved, if negotiators from Israel and the Palestinians cannot – or will not – make the concessions necessary to compromise, what then?

    Can the international community allow this dispute to run on and on forever – or will the time come when they have no choice other than to press their own ideas for a settlement?

    Understandably, the protagonists would hate this: but, if both sides take positions that impede progress, what alternative exists?

    Over recent years, the concept of an international peace-keeping force in Gaza and the West Bank has gained support. In Gaza, by monitoring the Egypt/Gaza border, it could inhibit the ability of Hamas to attack Israeli towns with rockets and, by enabling the blockade to be lifted, prevent the complete collapse of the economy. In the West Bank, it could focus on civil improvement, economic advance and more effective law and order.

    If progress is not made soon in bilateral negotiations, this idea may become an early step towards an imposed agreement.

    Will this be difficult? Of course it will. It is a gamble, a high risk toss of the coin, and one that requires great political courage, especially in Washington.

    Will it work? No-one can know – but nothing else has. Will America do it? Most people accept that the strength of the Israeli lobby limits America’s freedom of action. But time – and patience – is running out. The political risk of pressuring Israel – for any American Administration – is very great, but a contrary truth is that an agreement is in Israel’s long-term interest every bit as much as the Palestinians.

    Impossible, some say. Really? That’s what I was told before we started the Northern Ireland Peace Process. Distrust there was as toxic as between Israel and her adversaries, and yet Ireland is now a changed country, with neighbours once at war with one another, living together in harmony.

    And what is the alternative? A perpetual ongoing dispute that leaves generations of Israelis and Palestinians facing the same conundrum, the same hatreds, the same insecurities – until another war breaks out with enhanced weapons and an incalculable outcome.

    Iran

    Churchill once referred to Russia as “A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”. He went on to say: “But perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.”

    Much the same could be said of Iran today. In the year since the flawed re election of Ahmadinejad, there has been widespread internal dissent by hundreds of thousands of individual Iranians. There have been marches, coded speeches, intellectual dissent, as liberty has raised its voice. The regime has responded with repression but, like others before them, they will find that the demand for change, for something better, for a free and open society, is impossible to smother forever. You cannot arrest freedom and keep it in jail.

    Because of the regime, we view Iran through a very narrow prism. Is she developing nuclear weapons? When will she have them? Will she use them? On whom? Some ask whether America – or Israel as a proxy – should attack and destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities?

    The fear of a nuclear Iran is real. If she obtains a weapon, the risk of proliferation is high.

    Why is Iran doing this? The economy is in a mess. The currency is weak. Inflation, interest rates and unemployment are high. In the MENA, she is rated 137th out of 163 in terms of ease of doing business – only just ahead of the West Bank and Gaza. A sad comedown for a nation that, as Persia, was a great Empire, when the British and Americans lived in mud huts.

    Nothing is explicable without understanding that Iran is a nationalist and hard-line regime. The real source of power is the Supreme Leader, backed by the Revolutionary Guards, the Army, the Intelligence Services and the Police. The President, Ahmadinejad – so often the face of Iran – is a secondary figure. He is not the decisive decision-maker. He is the Apprentice, not the Sorcerer.

    What should we do? First, remember the regime is not the nation – as the internal dissent vividly makes clear. Even so, while the clerical regime survives, we must deal with it. It is possible negotiations may improve relations; and we should continue to try. But, because of the threat she poses, we must supplement dialogue with incentives and sanctions. In any event, adding a third military conflict after Iraq and Afghanistan is very unattractive – even if we cannot rule it out. But, for the time being, the sanctions applied last week seem the right way forward. We can only hope they prove sufficient.

    So often time is a tyrant. There is much I would like to have said of Lebanon – so often an innocent victim of wider issues. Of Syria – and how to engage her. Of Jordan – and our close friends in the Gulf. Of the rosy prospects of North Africa. Of Egypt and Turkey – and the importance of their role, and my support for Turkey’s application to join the EU.

    These – and other – issues must wait for another day. But not, I hope, for too long. The Middle East is stirring and we need to embrace it, consult it and benefit from its wisdom.

    If we do not, it will be our loss.

  • Sir John Major’s Speech at the Tory Reform Group Dinner – 25 November 2009

    The text of Sir John Major’s speech at the Tory Reform Group Dinner, held at the Cavalry and Guards Club in London on Wednesday 25th November 2009.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Here at Cavalry & Guards Club: moment to remember contribution of Cavalry, Guards and Services generally in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere as we sit here over dinner. We owe them a lot.

    You may think “British Foreign Policy in a Changing World” is an odd subject for someone who was Foreign Secretary for a mere 94 days.

    I partly agree: except – it seems to me – those 94 days were a golden age. We were at war with no-one. There were no “dodgy dossiers”. All was serene. A period on which the Foreign and Commonwealth Office looks back with great nostalgia. All was serene. A period on which the Foreign and Commonwealth Office looks back with great nostalgia.

    This evening, I want to focus on the world as it is – only then can we make policy with a clear-eyed appreciation of what is happening elsewhere and where the British national interest lies. This means shedding the nostalgia and fantasies that so often bedevil British attitudes.

    Fifty years ago, no-one could have predicted the present social or geo-political landscape.

    The Soviet Union and the United States were the two super-powers. China was isolationist and something of an enigma. Japan had barely begun her post-war rise. Central and Eastern Europe fell under Soviet control. Germany was still divided. Latin America was a Continent of revolutions. The EU was in its infancy. Much of Africa was still colonised. Oil was $3 a barrel and no-one imagined an Islamic Revolution. Little of that world now survives. Huge changes – and yet the pace of change is accelerating.

    But old attitudes linger. Often, very old attitudes. Beneath a thin veneer, there are still strands of opinion that hanker for the days when Palmerston sent a gun boat. These days, there are no Palmerstons and – as it happens – not all that many gunboats.

    As we look forward, more than ever our military power will need supplementing by diplomacy, by soft power, by the intelligent use of foreign policy.

    Here, history helps us. Old alliances can be invoked. Old friendships re-asserted. But, self-interest suggests we should use the international institutions with more commitment. Our membership of NATO, of the Security Council, of the Commonwealth and of the EU can all help us. Some may dispute the last assertion but they are wrong – the EU is crucial to our foreign policy clout. Every American President I have known wants the UK to be a power inside the EU and would see us as diminished if we were outside it. America does not want us as the 51st State, but as a powerful ally within Europe.

    Of course, many recoil at shared authority within Europe but, often, intelligent policy can shackle our partners to policies we advocate. The Single Market is a case in point. So is enlargement to the East. These are two of the biggest changes in European policy since the birth of the Common Market – and both were British initiatives. Let me offer a further example.

    After the first Gulf War the Iraqis were murdering Kurds. It was genocide. I advocated a ‘Safe Havens’ policy and persuaded the EU and the Commonwealth to back it. Faced with this alliance, the US, initially reluctant, signed up to this too: troops were put in the field and hundreds of thousands of lives were saved. On these occasions others accommodated British priorities. Sometimes we must accommodate theirs.

    The Lisbon Treaty is now law. Some of it is sensible. Some of it I don’t like. In particular, I am hostile to the idea of a President and a High Representative for Foreign Policy and – to judge from the appointments made – others have reached have reached the same view. Even so, David Cameron is right to accept that despite the denial of a referendum – our economic interests require us to remain an active Member.

    Some don’t agree. Britain, they proclaim, has surrendered so much power it has the status of a Parish Council. This is absurd, of course – what Parish Council runs its own tax policy, monetary policy, defence policy and foreign policy? None, of course. Nor ever will.

    But the ‘Better Off Out’ advocates – UKIP and their sympathisers, some within our own Party – magnify the frustrations of Europe and minimise its achievements. A war between European nations is now inconceivable and yet the sceptics see no relationship between that self-evident truth and the advent of the EU. Nor do they see that, if they achieved their aim of withdrawal they would downsize our role in the world. Less important to America. Detached from our European market. A less attractive home for investment from the East. The world would not applaud our Bulldog independence: they would think we had taken leave of our political senses. And – soon – we would, no doubt, take leave of our membership of the Security Council and our influence within the international financial institutions. We would not be seen as a serious nation: we would have emasculated our future. A Little Britain not a Great Britain. A stifled voice in a big and noisier world.

    It would be folly. A march towards irrelevance at precisely the moment we need all our confidence to compete in a world that is, perhaps, changing faster than it has ever done.

    The present economic crisis may slow down the exuberant change of the last decades but it won’t stop it. For sound economic reasons the East will outgrow the West for the foreseeable future: it has a lower cost base, more – and less expensive – labour, and it can build anew without first demolishing what existed before.

    In 1700, China and India were the greatest economic powers in the world: in terms of GDP they will once again – sometime in the next few decades – sometime in the next few decades – outstrip everyone, even the US and the EU. And, since economic power leads to political authority, it will pose an increasing challenge to Western diplomacy. Also, until science develops alternative fuels, nations rich in oil and gas will flourish. Over recent years, the world has looked enviously at energy rich nations – especially in the Gulf, but also Russia, of course, and the spending power of their Sovereign Wealth Funds. At an oil price of $75 – and it will soon exceed that once again – the Gulf alone adds $140 billion a year to their war chest for investment.

    We have a Government in the UK in the UK that inherited the best economy in Western Europe yet – in 12 years – has managed to near-bankrupt the nation. We are now the most indebted industrial nation in the world. Our fiscal deficit is – unbelievably – three times that of Italy and twice that of Japan.

    Labour bought the last two elections with a reckless economic policy and now the electorate that was deceived must pick up the bill. Labour now promise to halve the deficit in four years: but even if they did so – and it is unlikely – the deficit would still be twice as high as we have ever known before. And that relative poverty impacts on our foreign policy as well as our pockets.

    Since 1997, much of Labour’s foreign policy has been thoughtless and short-term. As for Afghanistan – which was embarked upon with the false promise that “not a shot will be fired” – no conflict in our modern history can have been sanctioned with less consideration.

    We had no objective. No idea of the scale of the commitment. No plan. No exit strategy and – for years – our servicemen and women have been in harm’s way with poor equipment and inadequate numbers. There is a case for this war but the political management of it has been shameful. I believe that was true, also, of the second Iraq War. Soon, the responsibility may devolve on a new Government.

    They must ask:-

    What is the aim of this war?

    What is the cost of failure?

    Can it be won by force of arms alone?

    What is the political/diplomatic strategy?

    And why – after eight years – is this still not apparent- after – is this still not apparent?

    Can a credibly non-corrupt Afghan Government be formed?

    How many troops are necessary?

    Does the use of unmanned drones which kill more civilians than terrorists aid or hinder the cause of winning hearts and minds?

    These questions – and others – should have been asked – and considered carefully – before the conflict began and it is a failure of commonsense, let alone good government, let alone good government, that they were not. The Nation is as right to be proud of the role of our Servicemen and women as it is to be hostile at the ineptitude of our Government.

    Good foreign policy also looks at inter-generational policy. One aspect of that is overseas aid – traditionally under the bailiwick of the under the bailiwick of the Foreign Office.

    One-half of the world will go to bed hungry tonight. They live on less than $2 a day while the rich nations spend many times more on agricultural subsidies for the already well-fed as they contribute to aid for 3 billion people who often have no food in their belly at all.

    And this will get worse. In the last 50 years, world population has grown from under 3 billion to over 6.5 billion. At the birth of Christ, world population was – probably – 300 million. By 1900 – 19 centuries later – it had grown by something over one billion. We now grow by nearly one billion every decade.

    World population is projected to reach 8 or even 9 billion by 2050 and over 95% of growth is in the developing world. This is like absorbing two more nations the size of China. We ignore this at our peril.

    The plight of the poorest is made worse by an issue that will impact on everyone: the price of food.

    Here, there is a real irony. As some nations grow and improve living standards, they drive up prices beyond the reach of the poorest. If one billion Indians – one-sixth of the entire world population – together with millions of Chinese, Brazilians and Malaysians – now eat two meals a day, instead of only one, the demand for food soars.

    That puts up prices – provoking panic and moving the politics of food to the front burner of controversy. The days of cheap food are gone.

    In the future the world will need all the food we can grow – even if nations such as Ukraine and Zimbabwe once again become the agricultural bread-baskets nature designed them to be.

    It is hard to overstate the importance of a cogent foreign importance of a cogent policy, and its wider impact, and its wider impact. Apart from those issues I have touched on it must deal with:

    The hotspots of Iran and Iraq;

    The Middle East Peace Process;

    The risks of nuclear or biological terror;

    The insecurities created by the arc of uncertainty from Syria to Pakistan;

    The enigma of Russian policy-making; and much else, not least the trade promotion of Great Britain PLC.

    We must make sure the Foreign Office is equipped for these tasks. It needs to be strengthened – not weakened. We need to stop cutting overseas posts and manpower. And we need to end the absurdity of requiring HM Ambassadors to become bloggers for Government PR purposes, and advisors on media handling for every report they submit. For Heaven’s sake, they are highly trained diplomats – not under-qualified publicists.

    There is an old sneer that the Foreign Office exists for foreigners. It is often trotted out to the applause of the ignorant and the ill-informed.

    Nothing could be further from the truth. The Foreign Office exists to represent British interests overseas in diplomacy and trade. Its job is to negotiate, to persuade, to identify a identify a problem before it becomes a crisis, before it becomes a crisis, and prepare the ground for solutions. In an increasingly inter-dependent world, its role will become ever more crucial.

    Let us hope we are soon returned to a Government that will re-establish Britain’s role in this new world and a British Foreign Secretary who will, once again, carry the weight of that Office as elegantly and intelligently as Peter Carrington, Geoffrey Howe, Douglas Hurd and Malcolm Rifkind.

    The world is in a constant state of change – and we need to put Britain back where she should be – ahead of the game rather than trailing in the wake of bigger beasts. The Foreign Office has the experience and the talent to do that. William Hague has all the qualities of leadership to deliver.

    But – first – we have an election to win. If we do so, we will return to serious Government.

    And then we can return to serious policy.

  • Sir John Major’s Speech at Foreign and Commonwealth Office Association Event – 29 November 2006

    The text of Sir John Major’s speech made at an event run by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Association, held at the Locarno Suite at the Foreign Office in London on the morning of Wednesday 29th November 2006.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I’m delighted to be back at the Foreign Office this morning.

    Foreign Secretary 94 days: golden age: went to war with no-one.

    My time here was too short: I wish it had been longer. Today I can speak as an individual – nothing I say should be regarded as anyone’s policy other than my own.

    We live in a world that is changing comprehensively and rapidly. There are short term imperatives that cannot be ignored: and long term issues that should not be ignored.

    Today – nothing is as it was: nothing will be as it is.

    Economically, the world is turning to the East which – for the first time since 1820 – now produces the majority of world growth. No-one should be surprised at this return to the past: for 1800 years, China had the largest economy in the world: then in the early 19th century, the West had an industrial revolution – and the East did not.

    Now, China is re-asserting the old order.

    Some people worry that China will be a threat to the West. Economically, of course, she already is. Politically, she is becoming more influential. But neither politically nor militarily is China a threat in the sense of the former Soviet Union. China’s focus will be on internal problems – widespread unemployment, pollution, water scarcity, public resentment of the growing disparity of wealth; demands for a social welfare system; the appetite for more self-government.

    Their hands are full.

    INDIA

    Behind China – perhaps 10-15 years behind – comes India, who once had nearly one-quarter of the output of the whole world.
    Today, once more, she is in the midst of an explosion of ambition and has cornered a large part of the market in knowledge-based industries; in R&D; in IT; in Bio-technology and Molecular Biology. But India’s potential for manufacturing and engineering is also enormous and she is now more cost competitive than China.

    LATIN AMERICA

    Nor is Latin America the “old” Continent of lost opportunities.

    Between 1986-96 – inflation in Latin America was 180%.

    Today – between 6-7%.

    Budget deficits and country debts are falling.

    AFRICA

    Even Africa – poor, forgotten, disregarded Africa – is benefiting from high commodity prices and growing faster than for many years.

    For the last quarter of a century, the principal engines of world growth have been the US, Japan and the EU. Soon, China, non-Japanese Asia and India will join them.

    Moreover, over the last two years, every emerging economy in the world has out-performed every mature economy. As a result, growth in the world economy is becoming better balanced than ever before – which is excellent news for future economic stability – but the price for the democracies of the West is that political power will be more widespread. As the world economy re-configures, so does politics.

    So, too, has the mode of political thinking. In the last 25 years – in the UK and the US – political thought has seemed to move away from the gravity-based centre and become more ideological.

    I am suspicious of ideology. Policy is often at its best when compromise and pragmatism are seen as virtues – not a betrayal of the true path.

    The tabloid certainty of ideologues is a fiction for the ignorant.

    Before I turn to some pressing problems, let me make some brief assertions that, hopefully, may stimulate questions.

    Britain is a medium-sized, relatively rich country, in a world whose growth is outstripping ours. To protect our future political and trading interests, alliances and diplomacy will be vital.

    I, therefore, consider it an extremely bad policy to cut our overseas representation at a time when we should be increasing it. If that seems like special pleading to this audience – then so be it. It is what I believed as Prime Minister. Budget cuts for the Foreign Service mean people. We should be increasing our profile not preparing to diminish it. I travel 4 months in every year to every part of the world and I don’t like the reductions I see. They are not in Britain’s interest.

    Secondly, international bodies.

    There is a mode of neo-thinking that dismisses the UN as if it were an irrelevance. Frankly, this is madness. If we didn’t have the UN we would have to invent it. Our British interest is to make it more efficient, eliminate its short-comings – not pander to the mode of thinking that undermines it. The UN is our servant: it can be as relevant as its Members choose to make it.

    EUROPE

    On Europe, I’m not sure what British policy is at the moment. Certainly it is in flux.

    For over 30 years – with a few exceptions such as the Single Market and Enlargement – we have been on the back foot in Europe. The growth to 25 – soon 27 – Members offers an opportunity to put that right. Our great phobia over too-deep-an integration seems less likely now.

    I think we should be looking for policies to help Europe work more efficiently – at a time when we are not under pressure over a new currency or a new Constitution (although the latter, I think, will come back in diluted form after the French Presidential Election). Greater economic competitiveness is vital for all Europe: we should be developing the case – and arguing for it.

    Some issues are very pressing now.

    Much of the Middle East is in conflict. Our task in this generation is to ensure that future generations do not have to re-live the extra-ordinary number of problems that have come together in our own time: terror, Iraq, Iran, MEPP, Afghanistan, Lebanon. North Korea is a dilemma too, but of a different nature.

    We need a dose of reality, too. We had better accept that may be no ideal solution. We may have to compromise.

    And we should recognise that every situation will require diplomacy and statesmanship to be enlisted alongside military power.

    Our preferred outcome may be un-achievable. But, sometimes, even compromise solutions are a triumph.

    It may be unfashionable – and dare not even be spoken of in some quarters – but it still seems to me that the core issue remains the Arab-Israeli conflict. The lack of a serious peace process has left a vacuum which has been filled by bloodshed and mayhem. A Peace Process – however difficult – offers hope and we badly need that. If benign neglect remains the policy, then this problem can only get worse.
    It is unprovable – of course – but I suspect that neglect of a credible peace process has done more to encourage Muslim militancy than Iraq.
    In Iraq and Afghanistan, we need to be clear about the mission, and we need an exit strategy. If I asked everyone in this room to write down what they thought that mission was, I would get a wide variety of different answers.

    Iraq is messy and getting messier. Those who predicted the coalition would be greeted as liberators on flower-strewn paths are wiser now.

    We are not – alas – remotely where we had hoped to be.

    Both casualties and civil violence are mounting especially in the 30 miles radius of Baghdad. As American soldiers clean up districts, the insurgents move to neighbouring areas. As the troops move on, the insurgents move back in, because the Iraqi armed forces cannot hold the ground. This failure to hold the territory gained, means that to some extent, policy is simply chasing its tail.

    At the same time, the Iraqi Government refuses permission for troops to enter the most violent areas, on the grounds that it would be inflammatory. This is an Alice-in-Wonderland decision, that provides a haven for militancy.

    Decisions that are fundamental to the future of Iraq are not yet made. We do not yet know how oil revenue will be shared. The boundaries of the future Federalist system are not known. The future of Kirkuk is still uncertain. The new Police Force is – to put it kindly – inefficient and with divided loyalties.

    For the average Iraqi, life is dire. Many are killed each month. Unemployment is huge. Inflation is at 70%. Electricity supplies – in Baghdad for example – fluctuate wildly during every 24 hour period: a few weeks ago it was 3-4 hours only; more recently, I believe they had the luxury of 10 hours power. All of this, in turn, creates instability – and a deep resentment of the coalition forces on the ground.

    Many Iraqis are arrested and detained a long time without charge. You will never build a democracy without rule of law and due process is badly needed. So is money. The Chancellor’s £150 million is welcome – but petty cash: General Dempsey has US$5 billion a year to spend.
    In the US and Britain there is pressure to leave.

    Yet – if we did so prematurely – our departure would create a double-dilemma: not only would it be humiliating for us to leave without stability, but if Iraq was then torn apart by civil war, the implications of a militant Islamic Government emerging scarcely need to be spelled out.

    From where we are today there are no simple solutions, but it is clear we need diplomacy and statesmanship alongside military power. And – it would help in the future – if we factored in the lessons of history.

    AFGHANISTAN

    Much of this is relevant to Afghanistan.

    To promote democracy and destroy terror is a noble mission but the justice of the cause doesn’t lessen the need for a clear-cut objective, good planning and adequate resources.

    The Afghan mission is uncertain.

    Is it a peacekeeping mission?

    Or a nation-building one?

    Is it to catch Bin Laden?

    Or to defeat the Taliban; drug barons; warlords; Iraqi infiltrators; Pakistani bandits; and the local population fearful of their poppy crop being destroyed?

    Or is it all of the above – and more?

    History tells us Afghanistan is a very tough place to be. In the Afghan Wars – during the height of the British Empire – Britain did not even come a poor second. And, more recently, between 1979-1989, the Red Army was defeated in Afghanistan: 120,000 troops, ten years on the ground – and then defeat.

    We have 5,500 soldiers in Helmand Province of whom less than 2,000 are – in the terminology – men with bayonets. Most are logistical support. We are under-resourced in men and equipment. We are bastardising helicopters to make others airworthy. We are short of armoured vehicles. Our NATO allies are slow to help and have different “rules of engagement”. This is lamentable.

    It is a woeful tale for young soldiers who – when we sent them there – were told they may not have to face a shot! Now, they find themselves in a shooting war.

    The conclusion I draw is that there must be a political as well as a military strategy. A senior British General warned recently of the danger of an aggrieved population turning back to support the Taliban.

    From our perspective of the Taliban – as a brutal force with a medieval culture – that seems absurd. But the local population see the UK and America painted each day as invading interlopers – much like the Russians over twenty years ago. It is a crude untruth – but an effective one.

    Moreover, as we destroy the poppy crop – an evil trade, but the only way of earning a livelihood for many Afghans – we need to put in place alternative sources of income. If we fail to do this, we will simply turn the population against us – and back into the arms of the Taliban.

    There is a common thread that runs through Iraq and Afghanistan: both are ideological conflicts that must be fought by intellectual as well as martial force.

    TERROR

    One continuing problem is terror. It pre-dated Iraq and it will post-date present conflicts. It has been rising for a long time – Iraq is a focus but not the cause although I suspect it has been a recruiting tool. If we are to render terror impotent – we must win the hearts and minds of those into whose ears radical poison is poured.

    Without an intellectual victory, there will be no lasting military victory, and no respite. If we are to safeguard our way of life we must mobilise our best instincts as well as our military might.

    The West must counter the malign way in which it is misrepresented. We will not be able to persuade the hard-line militants but we can siphon off their support. We can dry up their recruitment. We can isolate them. We can ensure our allies are active in our support, and not passive.

    All around the world, even in the grimmest of circumstances, people hope for something better. Hope for something better is the most powerful antidote to anti-Western propaganda. And to gain the allies necessary to isolate and defeat terror, we must offer that hope.

    This is not some impossible dream. We saw hope triumph when the free market defeated communism. Now it must do so again, to help democracy defeat terror.

    We have one great advantage. The on-rush of the free market is delivering material benefits to nearly every part of the world. Politics must offer hope too.

    This will mean dialogue. It will mean enlisting other nations. It will mean working with regimes of whom we strongly disapprove.

    Some say this can’t be done. I say it can. Tough – yes. Long-term – yes. But it can be done.

    Sixteen years ago, I began a dialogue with the IRA when they were still bombing Northern Ireland and the British mainland. Many in our own Party opposed this. More doubted it would ever succeed. Some said it was folly. Others were less kind.

    And yet it began a peace process that has transformed Northern Ireland.

    The same principles apply, even to the core disputes in the Middle East, and the ideological divides that are so dangerous today. Dialogue can be productive. But that dialogue cannot be with a megaphone. It must be face-to-face.

    The alternative – a lack of dialogue – enables an enemy to distort our motives and mis-represent our policies. This is folly.

    CONCLUSION

    I know it sometimes seems as if there are a vast array of insurmountable and daunting problems.

    Well, there are – but we should put all of them into context.

    None is as dangerous as the nuclear confrontation that preceded the collapse of the former Soviet Union. Today, the free market has comprehensively won the battle of philosophies that scarred most of the last century.

    Our long-term ally, America is – and will remain – the most powerful political, economic and military power in the world.

    Future generations will see the growth of democracy in Europe as a huge achievement.

    The growth of emerging economies will give more nations of the world a greater stake in a peaceful future.

    Ahead of us is a new world, with many intractable problems. We must see this new world as it really is if we are to help shape how it could be.

  • Sir John Major’s Speech at the Sir Edward Heath Memorial Lecture – 14 November 2006

    Below is the text of Sir John Major’s speech at the Sir Edward Heath Memorial Lecture, held at the British Embassy in Paris on Tuesday 14th November 2006.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:
    This is the last of a Series of Lectures to commemorate the life’s work of Sir Edward Heath. It says much about the current political mood in Britain that these Lectures are in Paris.
    Ted Heath had many passions – sailing, music, art – and, in politics, the binding together of Europe and Western relations with China. They remained consuming interests until the end of his life.
    And upon such matters he was resolute and immovable.
    Very little is immovable today. We live in a world changing more comprehensively than ever before. In politics and economics, we can no longer rely on many of the assumptions we have lived with for generations.
    Old disciplines once available to Government – exchange controls, for example – are redundant. Common standards and specifications are often international, rather than the prerogative of the Nation State. Even tax policy must bow to the need for competitiveness and, in small and medium sized economies, can be determined by the demands of footloose international capital.
    In recent years, corporate leadership has given us the global economy, the cellnet revolution, the internet and e-commerce. The landscape of investment has been changed by Private Equity and Hedge Funds.
    In the face of this revolution, Governments often fall behind, out-paced, as the private sector and the free market set the agenda.
    In the future – more than ever before – the influence of the private sector will be a key factor, not only in the prosperity of nations, but also in our way of life. As politicians diminish; the private sector grows. It is merging our tastes and shrinking our planet.
    When Kipling wrote those famous lines:
    “East is East and West is West
    And never the twain shall meet”
    he had not factored in the global market.
    Today – nothing is as it was: nothing will be as it is.
    CHINA
    Economically, the world is turning to the East which – for the first time since 1820 – now produces the majority of world growth. No-one should be surprised at this return to the past: for 1800 years, China had the largest economy in the world: then in the early 19th century, the West had an industrial revolution – and the East did not.
    Now, China is re-asserting the old order. The Chinese were making silk and pottery before the Egyptians built the Pyramids, and before the ancient Britons built Stonehenge.
    Today, China is utilising her natural advantages. She has space, and an inexhaustible supply of cheap labour. The lure of her gigantic market attracts US$ 60 billion of foreign investment each year. This combination has made her hugely competitive.
    She does not have energy – and so she is buying up oil fields, petro-chemical facilities, technology, mineral and natural resources whenever she can. She is short of many commodities and – as a by-product of her huge purchases of food, soya, rice, wheat and minerals – she is making political alliances around the non-aligned world.
    As her economy grows, so does her political influence. It is a sight I never thought I’d see: a once closed Communist economy challenging the Capitalist world.
    But not all is rosy for China. She is not El Dorado. Accepting the advantages of the free market means she must face the problems of it as well.
    Unemployment in China is huge. Hundreds of millions of workers from rural areas are migrating to the cities, in the hope of finding work. China faces serious problems of pollution, lack of water and shortage of energy.
    Ironically, even her 9½% annual growth brings political problems. Greater economic wellbeing leads to greater expectations: resentment of a growing disparity of wealth; demands for a social welfare system; an appetite for more self-government. Shanghai does not wish to be micro-directed from Beijing.
    Some people worry that China will be a threat to the West. Economically, of course, she already is. Politically, she is becoming more influential. But neither politically nor militarily is China a threat in the sense of the former Soviet Union. China’s focus will be internal for many years to come.
    Some of their problems are unexpected. The divorce rate in China has tripled as women exercise an independence they have never known before.
    Above all, China must overcome a paradox that will challenge Communist rule: to retain popular support, the Government need successful economic growth, but to obtain that they must loosen their grip on the regions. This is alien to their philosophy, but essential to China’s well-being.
    INDIA
    Behind China – perhaps 10-15 years behind – comes India, who once had nearly one-quarter of the output of the whole world.
    Today, once more, she is in the midst of an explosion of ambition and has cornered a large part of the market in knowledge-based industries; in R&D; in IT; in bio-technology and molecular biology. But India’s potential for manufacturing and engineering is also enormous and her employment costs are now more favourable than China. Within twenty years or so, she is likely to be one of the four biggest economies in the world.
    Although China and India are the biggest single ingredient in the economic shift from West to East they are not alone. Japan is an established economic giant but all SE Asia is growing.
    There is even a North-South movement as Latin America ceases to be the “old” Continent of lost opportunities.
    Between 1986-96 – inflation in Latin America was 180%. Today – between 6-7%.
    Budget deficits and country debts are falling. Prospects are rising.
    Even Africa – poor, forgotten, disregarded Africa – is benefiting from high commodity prices and growing faster than for many years.
    Other countries, too, are in phoenix mode.
    RUSSIA
    Politically, Russia under Putin is regressing. Economically, she has problems with corruption, with the Russian mafia, with bureaucracy, but business performance is strong with many niche opportunities for investors – if the right partner can be found.
    The reason for economic growth in – by our standards – a lawless background, is that Russia is blessed with natural resources. She:
    – Can lift as much oil as Saudi Arabia;
    – Has one-third of the world’s supply of natural gas; and
    – By any yardstick – has enormous scope for future growth.
    There are concerns about internal democracy.
    – President Putin has re-claimed too much power for the Kremlin.
    – The judicial system is neither swift, just nor independent.
    – The free press has all but disappeared.
    I am, in no sense, a Cold War warrior, but we do no favours to Russia if we overlook this authoritarian, anti-democratic trend.
    Externally, Ukraine and Georgia might also welcome the West letting her disapproval be known, so that Russia is aware there will be a price to pay if she slips back into her old ways. But – even as we watch political developments – it is time to recognise that the “New” Russia is not the “Old” Soviet Union.
    Even within the EU, there is a drift from the mature democracies of Western Europe to the new European nations. It is easy to see why: the cost of a skilled engineer in Slovakia or Romania is 14,000 Euros a year, whereas in Bonn, Paris or London it is 92,000 Euros a year.
    The free market has many virtues – but it is ruthless in pursuit of competitiveness, and mature economies must recognise this.
    Let me pull all this together:
    For the last quarter of a century, the principal engines of world growth have been the US, Japan and the EU. Soon, China, non-Japanese Asia and India will join them.
    And, added to the economic mix, is a new ingredient: over the last two years, every emerging economy in the world has out-performed every mature economy. As a result, growth in the world economy is becoming better balanced than ever before – which is excellent news for future economic stability – but the price for the democracies of the West is that political power will be more widespread.
    POLITICAL CHANGE
    We can see this new phenomenon taking shape. As the world economy re-configures, so does politics. The political map of the world is fluid.
    The battle between Communism and the Free Market has been comprehensively won.
    But the conflict between competing religious ideologies – so long dormant – is re-engaged. Radicals wish to unite Islam and pit that religion against the rest of the world.
    Much of the Middle East is in dis-array, as an extraordinary number of problems have come together in our own time: Oil; Terror; Iraq; Iran; MEPP; Afghanistan; Lebanon.
    Although these problems may seem insoluble – they are not. But it is essential to focus on the objectives we seek and then set out a route to achieve them.
    Every situation will require diplomacy and statesmanship to be enlisted alongside military power.
    We need a dose of reality, too. We had better accept there may be no ideal solutions. We may have to compromise.
    Our preferred outcome may be un-achievable. But, sometimes, even compromise solutions are a triumph.
    IRAQ
    In Iraq – and Afghanistan – we need to be clear about the mission, and we need an exit strategy. If I asked everyone in this room to write down what they thought that mission was, I would get a wide variety of different answers.
    Iraq is messy and getting messier. Those who predicted the coalition would be greeted as liberators on flower-strewn paths are wiser now. If they had known their history, they would have been much wiser much earlier on. We are not – alas – remotely where we had hoped to be.
    Both casualties and civil violence are mounting especially in the 30 miles radius of Baghdad. As American soldiers clean up districts, the insurgents move to neighbouring areas. As those troops move on, the insurgents re-occupy the area, because the Iraqi armed forces cannot hold the ground. This failure to hold the territory gained, means that policy is simply chasing its tail.
    At the same time, the Iraqi Government refuses permission for troops to enter the most violent areas, on the grounds that it would be inflammatory. This is an Alice-in-Wonderland decision, that merely provides a haven for militancy.
    Decisions that are fundamental to the future of Iraq are not yet made. We do not yet know how oil revenue will be shared. The boundaries of the future Federalist system are not known. The future of Kirkuk is still uncertain. The new Police Force is – to put it kindly – inefficient, and with divided loyalties.
    For the average Iraqi, life is dire. Many are killed each month. Unemployment is huge. Inflation is at 70%. Electricity supplies – in Baghdad for example – fluctuate wildly during every 24 hour period: a couple of weeks ago it was 3-4 hours only; this past week, I believe they had the luxury of 10 hours power. All of this, in turn, creates instability – and a deep resentment of the coalition forces on the ground.
    The situation is full of ironies. The Iraqi Government is weak and unstable. It is possible that only the presence of the coalition prevents a coup.
    And yet – to buy domestic popularity – the Government may be tempted to tell the coalition to leave.
    But such a departure would create a double-dilemma: not only would it be humiliating for the coalition to be asked to leave, but if they did so, and Iraq was torn apart by civil war, the implications of a militant Islamic Government emerging scarcely need to be spelled out.
    From where we are today there are no simple solutions, which is why I spoke of the need for diplomacy and statesmanship alongside military power. And – as we consider policy – we should factor in the lessons of history.
    AFGHANISTAN
    All of this is relevant to Afghanistan. The catalyst for democracy’s response to terror was the attack on New York five years ago.
    To promote democracy and destroy terror is a noble mission, but the justice of the cause doesn’t lessen the need for a clear-cut objective, good planning and adequate resources.
    In Iraq, the most dangerous place is Baghdad, where American forces take the lead. In Afghanistan, it is Helmand and Kandahar Provinces, where British and Canadian forces are in the front line.
    The Afghan mission, as seen from the UK, is uncertain.
    Is it a peacekeeping mission?
    Or a nation-building one?
    Is it to catch Bin Laden?
    Or to defeat the Taliban; drug barons; warlords; Iraqi infiltrators; Pakistani bandits; and the local population fearful of their poppy crop being destroyed?
    Or is it all of the above – and more?
    History tells us Afghanistan is a very tough place to be. In the Afghan Wars – during the height of the British Empire – Britain did not even come a poor second. And, more recently, between 1979-1989, the Red Army was defeated in Afghanistan: 120,000 troops, ten years on the ground – and then retreat – as they were beaten back to Moscow. And this was when Russia was still, herself, a superpower.
    A senior British General warned recently of the danger of an aggrieved population turning back to support the Taliban.
    From our perspective of the Taliban – as a brutal force with a medieval culture – that seems absurd. But the local population see the UK, America and Canada painted each day as invading interlopers – much like the Russians over twenty years ago. It is a crude untruth – but an effective one.
    Moreover, as we destroy the poppy crop – an evil trade, but the only way of earning a livelihood for many Afghans – we need to put in place alternative sources of income. If we fail to do this, we will simply turn the population against us – and back into the arms of the Taliban.
    There is a common thread that runs through Iraq and Afghanistan: both are ideological conflicts that must be fought by intellectual as well as martial force.
    TERROR
    If we are to lift the curse of terror from the next generation – or, more realistically, render it impotent – we must win the hearts and minds of those into whose ears radical poison is poured.
    Without an intellectual victory, there will be no lasting military victory, and no respite. If we are to protect our way of life we must mobilise our best instincts as well as our military might.
    The West must counter the malign way in which it is misrepresented. We will not be able to persuade the hard-line militants but we can siphon off their support. We can dry up their recruitment. We can isolate them. We can do more to encourage our allies to be more active in our support.
    All around the world, even in the grimmest of circumstances, people hope for something better. Hope for something better is the most powerful antidote to anti-Western propaganda. And to gain the allies necessary to isolate and defeat terror, we must offer that hope.
    This is not some impossible dream. We saw hope triumph when the free market defeated communism. Now it must do so again, to help democracy defeat terror.
    We have one great advantage. The on-rush of the free market is delivering material benefits to nearly every part of the world. Politics must offer hope too.
    This will mean dialogue. It will mean enlisting other nations. It will mean working with regimes of whom we strongly disapprove.
    Some say this can’t be done. I say it can. Tough – yes. Long-term – yes. But it can be done.
    Sixteen years ago, I began a dialogue with the IRA when they were still bombing Northern Ireland and the British mainland. Many opposed this. More doubted it would ever succeed. Some even said it was folly.
    And yet it began a peace process that has transformed Northern Ireland.
    The same principles apply today, even to the core disputes in the Middle East, and the ideological divides that are so dangerous. Dialogue can be productive. But it must be dialogue – not monologue – and it cannot be with a megaphone.
    The alternative – a lack of dialogue – enables our motives to be distorted, and our policies to be mis-represented. It would be folly to allow that to happen.
    CONCLUSION
    The political and economic challenges arising from the Near and Far East are more complex and far-reaching than any we have faced before. They will not fade away.
    I’ll 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 follow on – one from another.
    If that was true in the world of Benjamin Franklin, how much more true it is in the integrated global world of today.
    Our task in this generation is to look at our world with a critical and honest eye and see how it is – so we can try and shape how it could be.
    We have the ability to do so. Only time will tell whether we have the wisdom – and the will – to channel that knowledge into policies – to safeguard our future.

  • Sir John Major’s Interview on BBC Sunday AM – 16 July 2006

    The text of Sir John Major’s interview on the BBC Sunday AM show with Andrew Marr, broadcast live on 16th July 2006.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Now I’m joined here in the studio by the former Prime Minister Sir John Major. Welcome.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Good morning.

    ANDREW MARR:

    I’m going to go straight into that same story. I think you’ve known Shimon Peres reasonably well over the years. How did you respond to what he was saying this morning?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Well I have known him very well. He’s one of the foremost statesmen of the Middle East and a man for whom I have a huge regard but what we’ve just heard over the last ten minutes or so really makes one despair.

    Here you have a classic non-meeting of minds. Both sides think absolutely that they are right. There seems to be no point of compromise at all. And the problem with what’s going on at the moment, with all the violence and the deaths that are going on at the moment, is that it will entrench bitterness, it will entrench hatred, and even if Hezbollah is defeated, even if the head of Hezbollah is cut off, a new Hezbollah will arise.

    At the end of the day this is going to have to be solved by negotiation, and what is happening at the moment – apart from the immediate destruction – is making the prospect of fruitful negotiation almost impossible. So I think we have stepped back from where we were a few months ago very dramatically in the last few weeks.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Grim stuff?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    It’s very grim. It’s very grim, and one sees little reason at the moment for any optimism at all.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Had this not been happening this weekend I suppose the front pages would have been dominated by what’s going on in southern Afghanistan where British troops are being support and increased and have made a major offensive, I think the biggest since the original war in Afghanistan. I know that you’ve been interested in this and observing it. What are your feelings about that?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Well British troops are superb in the field in terms of conflict. But I think there are a number of reasons to be very concerned about what is happening in Afghanistan. For a start it’s not entirely clear, even to many of the military figures I’ve spoken to, precisely what the mission is. When the troops were first sent there by John Reid it was quite a low key mission.

    There wasn’t any suggestion of any real conflict. We saw just over the last day or so that there’s quite substantial conflict. We’ve seen a number of thefts. And now it seems the mission has escalated in a way that is really quite extraordinary. Apparently rather than just training local policemen and the modest mission that was originally there, it now seems to be to defeat the Taliban, to destroy the poppy crop, and in some form or another to nation build. Well that is a wholly different proposition to achieve with three and a half or four and a half thousand troops with reinforcement.

    ANDREW MARR:

    So you think we’re being sucked in to what is in effect a new war in southern Afghanistan?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Well I don’t know exactly what we’re being sucked into, but I think anyone who looks at the history of Afghanistan would be concerned about the present circumstances. If you look back historically, admittedly a long time ago, there were three Afghan wars in which Britain didn’t even come a good second. In more recent years the Russians were there with 120,000 men for ten years.

    ANDREW MARR:

    During your time as Prime Minister of course, and Foreign Secretary and then …

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Foreign Secretary, yes. It ended just as I became Prime Minister but there was no connection. They were there for ten years, the Russians had 120,000 troops there. They lost, I think, 15,000. They had innumerable wounded, and they retreated defeated. So if we have, if we really have, a mission, as it now looks, that is to begin to resurrect and provide a new stable, democratic Afghanistan, it’s hardly achievable with three and a half thousand troops and nine hundred replacements just coming into theatre.

    And I think it is even less achievable when you consider exactly what those troops are ranged against. They’re ranged against the Taliban, they’re ranged against Al-Qaeda, they’re ranged against the warlords, against the drug lords, against infiltrators from Iraq, bandits from Pakistan, and the local population, who exist through their poppy crop and believe that is going to be destroyed, and if it is destroyed have nothing else upon which to have a livelihood whatsoever. Now if you mix those ingredients together, it’s a fairly unsavoury stew to be handled by three and a half to four a half thousand troops.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Put that way you make it sound virtually like mission impossible.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Well, if the mission is as it now seems, and if we are going to stick with three and a half to four and a half thousand troops I do not see how the mission can be achieved however skilful the troops are. I have extraordinary admiration for them. I remember going out just before the first Gulf War and seeing our troops and being hugely impressed, but I also noticed they were very young.

    They were 19 to 23, 24, 25 and so will be the vast majority of troops out there. Now I think we owe it to them to be absolutely transparent about what their mission is, to ensure they have the best backup, and at the moment I don’t believe they have. Their Land Rovers are clearly inadequate.

    The helicopter situation I think is dire, both in terms of attack helicopters and support helicopters. The last information I had, and I’ve not heard it denied, is that they were having to cannibalise some helicopters in order to have others flying, and last week we had – I paraphrase, this may not have been exactly what he said – but the Defence Secretary seemed to be saying, “We will try and tease some helicopters out of our NATO partners.”

    ANDREW MARR:

    To fight a war…

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    To fight what is increasingly looking like a very substantial engagement, if not a war.

    ANDREW MARR:

    And yet that leaves the country, Prime Minister particularly, with a very stark choice. Either pull out of what seems to be developing into a war of a kind, or else heavily reinforce and dig in for the long-term. So which way do you go?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Well this is largely a NATO exercise. It isn’t just for the British. I think if you are going to ask the troops to carry out a mission of the scale it now seems to be – perhaps the government will say it isn’t that scale and draw it back – but if it is of the scale it now seems to be, then I think there is certainly going to be a need for better equipment, better backups, more troops, much greater liaison with NATO and perhaps more troops other than from the United Kingdom. But here again you have a problem. Many of the other nations who are in Afghanistan have particular national caveats. There are things that they will not do that we will.

    They have different rules of engagement, things they will not do that we will. And I hate saying this when British troops are in the field but I think someone has to make it clear that however skilled they are, however brave they are, however well led they are, they do need the logistical backup and they do need an absolutely clear and unmistakable mission that is achievable.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Yes.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    And in addition, we need to know what the exit strategy is. What do they have to achieve before the mission is accomplished and they come home? I don’t know and, more worryingly, I don’t think they do either.

    ANDREW MARR:

    Ten years ago, as Prime Minister, you were facing endless newspaper allegations of sleaze and you lost quite a few ministers one way and another. Now we have the prospect of the Prime Minister being investigated by the police and one of his closest associates arrested. It was never quite like that in your time. Do you think this is, in the end, a media storm, or do you think it’s a serious moment for the democracy?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Well it certainly wasn’t like that in my time because if you actually look at what happened, I mean the question of sleaze and mud was originally invented by the Labour Party who threw it at the Conservative Party to damage us politically.

    What goes around comes around and they’re now suffering from that themselves. But if you looked at what happened in the 1990s, most of the so-called sleaze events in the 1990s were pieces of individual behaviour by people, either backbenchers or on one or two occasions ministers, they did not involve the government as a government. Let us be quite clear about that, they did not involve the government as a government. And those issues that people say were most serious – cash for questions being the most obvious one – actually took place before the 90s, they actually took place in the 80s, they just became apparent in the 90s and were used to wrap around the last government’s neck. But let me finish this point because I think it’s a good point.

    Where there is something that needs to be said, it has become very standard practice to refer to the last Conservative government in terms of sleaze. It is inaccurate. I remember the principle members of that government: Hurd, Heseltine, Clarke, Bottomley, Gummer, Shepherd, Brooke – where are the sleazy members amongst that cabinet and amongst that government? That is short-hand by the press for a whole series of incidents unconnected to the government but sometimes within the government party, that I concede, and on one or two occasions amongst ministers, that I concede.

    ANDREW MARR:

    But now?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    But not endemic to government. So there is, I think, a clear distinction between what happened then and what is happening now. And I think the other point about what happened then was that we had been in government so long, about 15, 16, 17, 18 years…

    ANDREW MARR:

    There’s a natural exhaustion. I understand that.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Everything stuck.

    ANDREW MARR:

    But nonetheless, as a Prime Minister, you had to raise money, or people had to raise money on your behalf to fight general election campaigns. Now any suggestion that Tony Blair has been involved in trying to enrich himself personally, he’s trying to get the Labour Party enough money to fight their next election campaign or in this case the last one, is there an endemic problem with having Prime Minister of the country, leader of the opposition out there with a begging bowl, a cap, amongst all sorts of individuals desperately needing money?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Most of Labour’s money still comes from the trade unions, over 50% over the past few years, it still comes from the trade unions which is why so much of their policy is still subordinate to the trade unions. But as for the rest of it, I can only speak for my time in office. When I was in office the fundraising was done by the party treasurers. Number 10 was not involved in the fundraising, there were no personal envoys. Now what is happening now is the subject of investigation and I don’t wish to cast stones until I know the result of that investigation.

    I know what happened before, I know it was arm’s length from Number 10. It was dealt with by the Party treasurers and I know there was a very stringent system there afterwards, not least to the Honours Scrutiny Committee to ensure that everything was proper, as I firmly believe that it was. But I don’t know what has been happening under the present government, and until I do know, I think I’m happy to leave it in the hands of those investigating it.

    ANDREW MARR:

    You’ve been pretty keen on the way David Cameron has performed so far, but is ‘hug a hoodie’ going just a little too far for you?

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    I think you have to look at what David Cameron is seeking to achieve. He’s trying to produce a Cameron brand so that people can see that the Conservatives have changed. A long time ago, because of the success of the 1980s and the first two thirds of the 1980s were perhaps the most successful period in government for any party for a very long time, the first two thirds, perhaps up until 1990…

    ANDREW MARR:

    You were about to say 1990, that’s when you took over.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Up until 1987 they were hugely successful, and I think that we have to pay a great degree of credit to that. But some of the people still look at what was appropriate in the 1980s and think it is still absolutely appropriate and nothing else is in the 1990s and in the 2000s.

    And of course the country has moved on, the world has moved on and we have to move on, and that is what David Cameron is trying to do to produce his own brand. And you can always find a single issue, if you look hard enough, that any single member of any party with any Prime Minister won’t agree with. But I think he’s moving us in the right direction.

    ANDREW MARR:

    The right direction. Sir John, thank you very much indeed.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    My pleasure.

  • Mr Major’s Parliamentary Answer on Afghanistan – 25 October 1989

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s Parliamentary Answer on Afghanistan, held on 25th October 1989

    FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH SECRETARY:

    Mr. Wareing To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on Her Majesty’s Government’s policy towards Afghanistan.

    Mr. Major We have consistently supported efforts to replace the present regime in Kabul with a truly representative Government acceptable to the majority of Afghans. That is the necessary preliminary to any lasting settlement and to the voluntary return of Afghan refugees.

    Mr. Wareing It is now nearly six months since the Soviet Union did the right thing and withdrew its troops from Afghanistan. It is perfectly clear that the Government in Kabul is far from being doomed as we were told that it would be, but we do know that the feudal terrorists are pouring rockets into Kabul onto hospitals and buses, and innocent people are being killed. Will the Foreign Secretary assure us that he will use all his energies to ensure that neither the United States nor Pakistan gives succour or arms to these terrorists?

    Mr. Major In view of what the hon. Gentleman has just said, he may be both surprised and shocked to know that in the six months since Russian troops left, 4,000 supply flights from Russia have gone to Najibullah.

    Mr. Ron Brown Does the Minister accept and understand why the regime has not been defeated? It is because the workers, peasants and above all the revolutionary women who support the Government have made it clear that they back enlightened change and reforms. It is about time that this Government understood those things and that one cannot defeat a revolution with popular backing. Despite all the dirty tricks, the regime in Afghanistan will prevail.

    Mr. Major I fear that I cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman. So enlightened is the regime to which he refers that 5 million people have fled from it.