Press Office

Aired: Sunday, 7 February, 2010 10:00
Sunday Live

Any quotes used must be attributed to Sky News, Sunday Live

ADAM BOULTON:
Kenneth Clarke, the heavyweight from David Cameron’s Shadow Cabinet, joins me now from his constituency in Nottingham. Mr Clarke, thank you for being with us. A lot of talk about the opinion polls, suggestion that David Cameron is possibly seeing outright victory in the election slipping from him, is that your reading of the political mood?

KENNETH CLARKE:
Well I think it’s a bit fanciful. I think the one today has moved by 1%. Now all the polls actually are statistically accurate to within one or two percent but the newspapers pay a lot for them so they read a lot into little bobbles in whatever the result is. I think we are clearly in the lead and I also think the next election also involves winning a very large number of seats with some very local campaigning in many places so I actually think one doesn’t ignore them, all politicians pretend they ignore them but they don’t, but I haven’t seen anything significant happening in the opinion polls and I don't think it has had any effect on David Cameron or any of the rest of us in our campaigning, preparing to try and fight and win this election.

ADAM BOULTON:
Why do you think that the Conservatives aren’t doing better given that there do seem to be a lot of negative opinions around about the Labour government?

KENNETH CLARKE:
I think that people are very disillusioned with politics, a lot of very nasty things have happened in this parliament, people were over enthusiastic about new Labour and Blair when they started, they are extremely cautious and they need us to get across confidence in our confidence, our clarity, our determination to get on with the very difficult job of getting us out of the present economic crisis. I think most people decided quite a long time ago they had had enough of Gordon Brown and I think there is a general desire to get rid of him and the present government which is plainly played out and it is quite incredible when it comes to tackling the debt and the deficit they are leaving behind. There would be a bit of a panic in the markets I think if by some extraordinary turn of events Gordon Brown were returned to power but they are looking at us carefully, which is very sensible, and we are preparing ourselves, carefully prepare as well but people have to decide. It is obviously time for a change it seems to me and we certainly can’t carry on as we are at the moment.

ADAM BOULTON:
You do seem to have won the internal battle within the Conservative party about how radical you should be initially. I mean for all you say about the deficit, it has now been made clear by both Cameron and Osborne that they are going to take relatively few steps in the first year, something that you were advocating, saying that the alternative could be calamitous.

KENNETH CLARKE:
Well I was not advocating, it was spun, journalists spin as much as politicians. I was repeating what I think we will be repeating, I can’t see how George Osborne and myself are supposed to have said different things, we’ve always said you should start straight away and I said we should start straight away in that interview. A few months ago, before the fiscal year started as it were, as we were further away from 2010/2011, we pointed out that the government was wrong to keep increasing spending and borrowing and they should tackle it and start now. It now looks as though if we get into office, it will be two months into the year and I still say and have always said, we should start straight away but obviously there is a limit to what you can achieve once you are already part way into the particular year. Beyond that you have got to have, got to have it very quickly, a credible plan to get rid of the bulk of the structural deficit within the next parliament. I think George Osborne and I have been saying that for as long as I can remember which is why as I say, if we didn’t get in, if people thought Labour was going to get in, I think you really would have a panic in the markets so presumably it would be Ed Balls as Chancellor rather than Alistair, but the result would be interest rates soaring and a real, real problem. Now we have to avoid that by starting as soon as we get in and then producing a credible plan, fifty days George has set himself to produce that plan to show how we get down the bulk of the structural deficit.

ADAM BOULTON:
And you expect to be part of preparing that plan do you?

KENNETH CLARKE:
Well I will be giving my advice. George will be Chancellor, in my opinion he will be an excellent Chancellor of the Exchequer, he will have the full support of me and his colleagues but most importantly, of David Cameron, and I often talk about economic policy to George, it was talking about economic policy to George that got me back on to the front bench but he is going to be Chancellor, he will be in charge and he agrees with me on the objectives. I’ll give any advice he asks for.

ADAM BOULTON:
Okay, but you have been Chancellor before and most people see you as being quite a successful Chancellor. If you were doing the job this time round as you have defined it, what would you do? Would you be putting up taxes further, would you be having much bigger cuts, would you have across the board cuts, what would you do?

KENNETH CLARKE:
I would obviously face up to the fact that the thing within the control of the government is the public debt and the public deficit, it is most important. If you don’t tackle that, interest rates will go up, that will stop the recovery and you’ll never get back to growth. Now I’ve been talking about debt and deficit for several years and we would try, I would try to avoid tax, I would avoid tax on businesses, I would see to avoid or mitigate the increased National Insurance that has already been announced by Labour for 2011, we’d stop that if we can, it’s an increase in income tax for ordinary people and it is a tax on jobs for employers but the first thing is to produce a credible public spending plan and we do have to start from scratch. It is amazing how in opposition we all have access to far less information than we had when we were in government.

ADAM BOULTON:
What about value added tax? Conservatives have put it up in the past, would you see that as a possibility?

KENNETH CLARKE:
I never went round before a budget going through tax by tax saying might do that one, might not do that one. Obviously if you have to put up taxes you look at all taxes but we have also made it clear, and I have to say I think we’ve always made it clear, I’m not aware that David Cameron or George Osborne say anything different, that we start with public spending and public spending means going across departments exempting where you have obviously got to exempt the key ones but going across departments otherwise and carrying out a professional job of getting spending down to a level we might afford and getting down to a level where we can actually raise some more debt from foreigners to pay for without putting all our interest rates up again.

ADAM BOULTON:
If as you say there is an active possibility of the Conservatives winning the election, if they do, do you have any idea of how long you would like to serve as a cabinet minister for?

KENNETH CLARKE:
Well Prime Ministers decide who to appoint. It is very important actually, the one thing, we don’t want the presidential government of Blair and Brown and their little secretive coteries and so on, Cameron won’t run government like that but he has got to have the authority to decide who he wants and who he doesn’t in the government and so I’d like to serve but that is entirely up to him and then certainly for somebody like me, that’s up to him to decide when he gives me the thanks of the nation and replaces me with somebody else, I have no idea. At the moment the reason I’m back doing it, firstly I'm impressed by Cameron and Osborne and I do think we’ve at last, they have changed the Conservative party, it’s ready for government again. I do find the national problems appalling but in a funny way I like crises, I enjoy them because they are such a challenge and I’d like to get involved in helping tackle it and I shall carry on as long as I enjoy it until, I have no doubt, one day the Prime Minister will call me in and say Kenneth, I’m thinking of making some changes and ask me to go away and advise him on something else but I have been in politics long enough to think it won’t be a traumatic moment when it comes.

ADAM BOULTON:
But you wouldn’t mind serving for a full parliament in cabinet? Or would that be too much?

KENNETH CLARKE:
Well I don't know, there are plenty of older people about. I was talking to somebody the other day about Paul Volcker who I am a fan of and who has suddenly emerged on the scene in America, I have always had a lot of time for Paul Volcker which, without being patronising, he was on of the Chairmen of the Fed they’ve ever had but he’s back advising Obama and the thought crossed my mind, you know, Paul Volcker is an awful lot older than I am which was rather encouraging because I look across the scene in Western Europe to see who is still practising as it were and trying to think, now who is older than me in the top of the stage in Western Europe at the moment and I’m afraid Silvio Berlusconi is the obvious example. I think I prefer the comparison with Paul Volcker rather than Silvio Berlusconi.

ADAM BOULTON:
You have already mentioned the impact you think the MP expenses scandal and associated matters have had. You are also a QC, what do you think of this suggestion that those MPs could avoid prosecution by pleading parliamentary privilege?

KENNETH CLARKE:
Well I’m not going to start giving legal advice, I haven’t practised for many years but it strikes me as very fanciful to think that parliamentary privilege can be invoked. MPs are subject to the same laws as everybody else and I can remember MPs going to prison and being prosecuted. Parliamentary privilege exists to preserve the right to free speech, you do have to keep parliamentary privilege to the debating chamber otherwise we get up and sometimes people do make very controversial and occasionally outrageous speeches and all the people you’d upset would start suing you and pressure groups and lobbies would start taking out libel writs. That’s what parliamentary privilege is about. When it comes to whether or not you have dishonestly stolen money by making a false claim for expenses, I can only say personally I would be absolutely astonished and completely appalled actually if parliamentary privilege was invoked as a defence to such charges and I very much hope, of course they are entitled to a presumption of innocence till proved guilty but their lawyers are working on some answer to the allegations against them and I think invoking a 17th century Bill of Rights is not a defence that ought to succeed. There would be public outrage if it did. Parliament certainly, most MPs would be dismayed if they ran it.

ADAM BOULTON:
Kenneth Clarke, thank you for joining us this Sunday Live.