Press Office

Aired: Sunday, 21 February, 2010 10:00
Sunday Live with Adam Boulton

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

ADAM BOULTON:
According to William Hague in the News of the World today, Gordon Brown is deliberately wrecking the country to sabotage an incoming Tory government, metaphorically poisoning the wells like a retreating army. Well the Shadow Foreign Secretary joins me now from snowy Darlington. Mr Hague, these are pretty serious charges, what’s your evidence?

WILLIAM HAGUE:
Well I’ve always thought in recent years that this is the most irresponsible government of modern times, certainly in the way in which it runs the nations finances and I think when you look at the extent of the budget deficit and their failure to address that in the run up to the election, I think you can only explain it in various ways. One is that they don’t want to admit that they’ve been wrong in recent years and start to address a deficit that they’ve built up but another, and this is something I’ve come to the view observing them over the last few years, that I think if they just think leave an incoming government that succeeds them with a desperately difficult situation then all well and good. I think this is a government that puts budgets together for political reasons and in a political way, not necessarily for the good of the country or the nation’s finances so yes, I do think they want to leave an incoming government with a poison chalice.

ADAM BOULTON:
Can you produce any direct evidence of malice aforethought as it were?

WILLIAM HAGUE:
Well this is my opinion of behaviour, it’s a government that will not tackle the budget deficit. As Richard Branson said, who used to be a great admirer I think of Tony Blair, he said ..

ADAM BOULTON:
And Margaret Thatcher before that.

WILLIAM HAGUE:
… this week that the failure to tackle the … and Margaret Thatcher before that, well I think he is turning into an admirer of David Cameron quite rightly, because he said the failure of the government to tackle the deficit is a real threat to the economic recovery and it is a real threat to the whole future of this country. Every child born in Britain today is being born with £23,000 of debt thanks to Gordon Brown, we would be left if we win the election with an interest bill, where the interest we have to pay is more than the entire education budget of the country. This will be the legacy of Gordon Brown so I think it is not only irresponsible but when it’s on that scale it is a government that does not care what it is leaving to its successors.

ADAM BOULTON:
Of course, as you just heard from Harriet Harman, she would say the government cares very much, that what they have done is invested in stimulating the economy at the time when it was needed and in common with many other governments, including the US government, and that’s why debt has gone up, because of the need for that stimulus.

WILLIAM HAGUE:
Well they don’t have much in common with other countries because we’ve been the last country in the whole G20 to emerge from recession and they are running the biggest budget deficit of all the major economies in the developed world so their record is worse on any comparison than any of the other major economies in the world.

ADAM BOULTON:
All the more need for a stimulus because, you know, this week writing in the Financial Times I think it’s Martin Wolf said that if there had been no stimulus we would now be in a great depression.

WILLIAM HAGUE:
Well funnily enough they are not actually delivering a stimulus. This is a deficit they have built up over time. They went in to the recession with an enormous deficit, with the largest deficit of all the major developed countries and of course since the one thing that they did was a stimulus was the reduction of VAT and that has now been reversed at the beginning of January, they are not really delivering an economic stimulus, they are …

ADAM BOULTON:
And positive easing.

WILLIAM HAGUE:
What they have delivered is a 13 year accumulation of additional debt and there they are yesterday, in Gordon Brown’s speech, asking for a second chance. Now what they are really asking for is a fourth chance, a fourth term and you wouldn’t, if you had a financial advisor who had run off with your pension funds and devastated your savings and left you with enormous debts for the future, I don't think you’d want to give them a second, third or fourth chance.

ADAM BOULTON:
Conversely, if you were on life support and someone was saying they were going to turn down your oxygen if they were elected, you might say I won’t vote for that either.

WILLIAM HAGUE:
Well, as you know, what we propose to do is to give the country some oxygen, to be able to say this country is open for business again and George Osborne has set out proposals …

ADAM BOULTON:
I thought you said you were going to cut spending to reduce the deficit as quickly as possible.

WILLIAM HAGUE:
Well you have to cut spending in order to give the confidence in the future of this country otherwise one day you end up like Greece having to do it all in a great emergency and what counts more than anything else is confidence and I don't think …

ADAM BOULTON:
Well we’re having an emergency budget already, we’ve been told that. If you win we’re having an emergency budget.

WILLIAM HAGUE:
Of course we will have to and any incoming government would want to have a budget but we don’t want to be driven to the position of some countries like Greece and the budget deficit in this country is now approaching that level, so it is important that people understand what a very serious financial position Gordon Brown is leaving us in at the same time as hitting people who Labour said they were going to look after. When they abolished the 10p tax rate or they brought in a 96% marginal tax rate in effect for people on certain levels of income with a combination of tax credits and higher taxes, they have really hit a lot of low and middle income people in this country and not looked after them at all. So we desperately need a change of government and that’s what we have to bring about in the next few months.

ADAM BOULTON:
Why do you think then that it looks as if the opinion polls now are narrowing? It doesn’t appear that David Cameron’s Conservatives have done particularly well this year so far.

WILLIAM HAGUE:
I would question that actually. I have spent the last week while parliament has been in recess, touring around the northern marginal seats up here and I don't think the political situation actually on the ground has changed this year so far at all and indeed I know there is a poll today that you can quote that shows a 6% Conservative lead, there have been other polls in this last week that have shown …

ADAM BOULTON:
But if you look at the trend it does seem that things are narrowing, it is looking like a rather closer election than perhaps people had thought at Christmas.

WILLIAM HAGUE:
Well I don't think that’s the case at the moment but of course it could be the case and it could become the case. We have never said we have this election in the bag, we’ve always acknowledged we have to win a remarkably large number of seats in one go in order to gain a majority in the House of Commons but I would say, going around the northern marginals, that we are in, at the moment, in pretty good shape. I think if an election were held now there would be a clear Conservative victory but it’s not being held now, it is being held whenever it is, in 10 or 11 weeks time in all probability so of course we will have to go on working hard and doing our utmost but we are fully organised to do that and I don't think that anything that has happened in the last few weeks has put us off in any way or in any way dented the morale of the party leadership. I feel as upbeat about our prospects as for a long time.

ADAM BOULTON:
As someone who has been a leader and been subjected to a fair amount of newspaper allegations yourself at various times, do you set any stall by the claims this morning from Andrew Rawnsley?

WILLIAM HAGUE:
Well they are claims, as you say, in a book, they are not claims from the Conservative party but I suppose it is fair to say they are part of a pattern of allegations that raise questions about the Prime Minister’s judgement and behaviour but having not been on the inside of Number Ten in the last 13 years I can’t judge that. I noticed Andrew Rawnsley said on your programme earlier that he was 100% sure that the Cabinet Secretary had given a verbal warning to the Prime Minister and I suppose history will eventually reveal the absolute truth or otherwise of that. I would just spare a thought for the staff in all of this by the way. My experience in government is that the people who work in Number Ten or at the top of other government departments, they work round the clock, they are very hard working and dedicated and not very highly paid considering their hours and responsibilities and they are entitled to expect the highest standards of behaviour and courtesy and politeness and the Ministers and Prime Minister they serve.

ADAM BOULTON:
It sounds as if you are inclined to believe probably these allegations. On that basis do you believe that Gordon Brown is fit to be Prime Minister on character alone?

WILLIAM HAGUE:
Well I wouldn’t say on character alone. Obviously I don't think he should be Prime Minister, I don't think he should ever have been Prime Minister, I think we should get rid of him today, next week, next month, whenever we possibly get the opportunity and the main reason for that is not any allegations like this, it’s not his character or behaviour or judgement and behaviour in these sorts of cases, it is a judgement about the state of the country that he leads.

ADAM BOULTON:
I understand that, that’s why I said on character, do you think he has got the character that makes him fit to be a Prime Minister?

WILLIAM HAGUE:
Well not really, I suppose I have to say not really. I don’t like to be unfair to people personally in politics but I don't think he has ever really shown that he can lead a happy team and a successful team and maybe if there is truth in any of these allegations, that’s part of the reason why and I think that is one of the reasons why he has struggled as Prime Minister. So I don't think he has really been cut out of it but the main reason we should decide to have a change of government is not anything like that, it’s because of all the bigger issues we were talking about a few minutes ago.

ADAM BOULTON:
Well not long now William Hague, thank you very much indeed. I hope you don’t get snowed in up there.

WILLIAM HAGUE:
Thank you.