0:00:01 > 0:00:13Now on BBC News, HARDtalk.
0:00:13 > 0:00:21Welcome to HARDtalk. My guest today is one of the big these of British
0:00:21 > 0:00:25politics. Known as the father of the house because he is the longest
0:00:25 > 0:00:30serving member of the Commons he has also held more cabinet post than any
0:00:30 > 0:00:36other living British politician. Yet, Ken Clark says we are now in
0:00:36 > 0:00:39the maddest situation of his lifetime and talks of a political
0:00:39 > 0:00:43system that is broken. It is one of the reasons he could not quite bring
0:00:43 > 0:00:46himself to retire at the last election, staying on to fight
0:00:46 > 0:00:51against Brexit and for the Conservative Party. Is it a fight he
0:00:51 > 0:01:24can win? Ken Clark welcome to HARDtalk. You have served under four
0:01:24 > 0:01:28prime ministers, Heath, Thatcher, major and Cameron and yet you say we
0:01:28 > 0:01:33are now in the maddest situation. What do you mean by that? It is so
0:01:33 > 0:01:39chaotic and unpredictable. We got here by accident, nobody planned it.
0:01:39 > 0:01:44Nobody thought that Leave would win the referendum campaign. Nigel
0:01:44 > 0:01:49Farage was as amazed as David Cameron to find he had won. Both
0:01:49 > 0:01:52political parties lost their traditional political support to, or
0:01:52 > 0:01:56large parts of it. Activist organisations do not represent their
0:01:56 > 0:02:04votes. Loading patterns call it. An election produced no result
0:02:04 > 0:02:08whatsoever. We win the old mining tales to make towns but we lose
0:02:08 > 0:02:14Kensington. And we lose Canterbury to the Labour Party.Let me sum it
0:02:14 > 0:02:19up. Anyone who tells you, in my opinion, if anybody tells you that
0:02:19 > 0:02:24they know what is going to happen to British politics over the next 12
0:02:24 > 0:02:28months is deceiving themselves. It is impossible to predict.Would you
0:02:28 > 0:02:36like to see another UK wide vote, either on leaving the EU or, indeed,
0:02:36 > 0:02:41on the deal when it is done?I hope I never lived to see another
0:02:41 > 0:02:44referendum held on any subject that people think should be given any
0:02:44 > 0:02:48constitutional or. It is an absurd way of running a modern and
0:02:48 > 0:02:55complicated country. Particularly so when you have a big broad brush yes,
0:02:55 > 0:03:02no question. Should we move, should we stay? Within that are hundreds of
0:03:02 > 0:03:06complex sub questions of things that will be affected. A stupid three or
0:03:06 > 0:03:13four week campaign...You hate referendum is so much that you think
0:03:13 > 0:03:18it was a mistake to have had one. Having had that one and acting on it
0:03:18 > 0:03:22you would not say it should go back to the country to either sign off on
0:03:22 > 0:03:28the deal ought to have a second vote on the question?If the Remainer 's
0:03:28 > 0:03:33were to win next time presumably of we would have to shake hands and
0:03:33 > 0:03:38agreed to try best of three. These are serious issues about the
0:03:38 > 0:03:41governance of the country, about the well-being and prosperity of
0:03:41 > 0:03:44children and grandchildren. I believe in Parliamentary democracy
0:03:44 > 0:03:52taking considered and grown-up decisions.As an MP you will get a
0:03:52 > 0:03:55vote next year. You were the only Conservative MP to vote against
0:03:55 > 0:04:00Article 50, the article that triggered the UK's exit from the EU.
0:04:00 > 0:04:05Will you vote against any deal whatever it looks like?I made it
0:04:05 > 0:04:14clear that I accept that Parliament has decided. The referendum was
0:04:14 > 0:04:18advisory, in my opinion, that is what the British constitution says.
0:04:18 > 0:04:23Politically people signed up to it but I did not. The Parliament, by a
0:04:23 > 0:04:27big majority decided to leave. Article 50 process started. We may
0:04:27 > 0:04:32stop it but I don't think the political class could possibly screw
0:04:32 > 0:04:38themselves up in this country into trying to stop it. In my opinion,
0:04:38 > 0:04:43given my values, were doomed to leave.Indeed. So there will
0:04:43 > 0:04:48possibly be a deal on the table, but there be a vote. Will you vote in
0:04:48 > 0:04:53favour of the deal?If it is a good deal. We still need to decide what
0:04:53 > 0:04:57sort of vote we get. Let me sum it up and give your short answer for a
0:04:57 > 0:05:02change, I see myself as trying to minimise the damage and try to get
0:05:02 > 0:05:07the best possible outcome of this undesirable situation that does the
0:05:07 > 0:05:10least damage to the future political standing of this country in the
0:05:10 > 0:05:18world and our economy. We still have to sort how what kind of vote
0:05:18 > 0:05:22parliament will have and I want a meaningful vote, that is the phrase
0:05:22 > 0:05:29we will use. By that, I think, the government must, after finishing the
0:05:29 > 0:05:32negotiations, get the approval of Parliament before it ratifies the
0:05:32 > 0:05:38deal. If Parliament reject bid and in my opinion you go back to the
0:05:38 > 0:05:41negotiating table and see if you can negotiate something which you can
0:05:41 > 0:05:44get through British Parliament.And this is where it is different from
0:05:44 > 0:05:50Article 50 vote, we could be in a situation where you are voting
0:05:50 > 0:05:53against the government, your own government, that is effectively a
0:05:53 > 0:05:58vote of no-confidence. If others vote as you would want them to the
0:05:58 > 0:06:05government could fall. I wonder if you are in a situation where you are
0:06:05 > 0:06:10more fearful of leaving the EU under certain terms than you are of a
0:06:10 > 0:06:13labour government and Jeremy Corbyn? It will not bring the government
0:06:13 > 0:06:19down. I voted against the government several times already. And I voted
0:06:19 > 0:06:23with the government more times than against it on European issues.
0:06:23 > 0:06:32Nobody notices that.Could Theresa May...Unless she could then
0:06:32 > 0:06:36negotiate a revision to the deal which would enable us to continue.
0:06:36 > 0:06:39It all depends on the circumstances at the time which no-one can
0:06:39 > 0:06:44foresee. We now have a five year fixed term of Parliament act. We
0:06:44 > 0:06:50have a Conservative MPs... Agreeing that they won an election. Someone
0:06:50 > 0:06:57has to try to turn this boat into a confidence vote. Not all votes are
0:06:57 > 0:07:04confident votes. That is a big one, I agree.You may not like the deal
0:07:04 > 0:07:08that is on the table but by voting against it you are also
0:07:08 > 0:07:13inflicting...That would be a serious vote. It is possible but it
0:07:13 > 0:07:17does depend... Sometimes it may lead to a change of Prime Minister which
0:07:17 > 0:07:21I personally do not want.And it might lead to a change of
0:07:21 > 0:07:26government.The judgement that Parliament needs to exercise is does
0:07:26 > 0:07:31it give, will give the government of the day approval for this particular
0:07:31 > 0:07:39deal? Nowadays, all events of this kind are surrounded by a far more
0:07:39 > 0:07:44hysterical entertainment nonsense about the personalities. What
0:07:44 > 0:07:48matters is the arrangements we are allowing the government to put into
0:07:48 > 0:07:53place for the future.You are the person who points out the
0:07:53 > 0:07:56Conservatives do not want another election and part of that is that
0:07:56 > 0:08:00they currently do not have a majority. You think a Conservative
0:08:00 > 0:08:05Party, as things stand, could win another election?If there were one
0:08:05 > 0:08:09now it would be a bigger gamble than another referendum. The public would
0:08:09 > 0:08:13be appalled if the political class called for another election.
0:08:13 > 0:08:18Remember, the public don't like either of the parties.I am asking
0:08:18 > 0:08:22you particularly about the state of the Conservative Party at the
0:08:22 > 0:08:28moment.The parties are in a frightful mess. The public attitudes
0:08:28 > 0:08:32towards them are totally unpredictable.Indeed. But if the
0:08:32 > 0:08:37Conservative Party, we learned from the chairman of the that 70
0:08:37 > 0:08:40democracy that the membership he reckons is about 70,000. We don't
0:08:40 > 0:08:45know figures because they have not provided quarter a year.Of that
0:08:45 > 0:08:50number make sense? The membership is the smallest and the oldest in my
0:08:50 > 0:08:57political career. I don't no -- I don't exactly bring down the average
0:08:57 > 0:09:03age when I go to meetings but I still feel out of place.Comparing
0:09:03 > 0:09:07to a Labour Party that has half a million members as of last summer
0:09:07 > 0:09:11are lit as a mass membership of young lefties who are
0:09:11 > 0:09:14unrepresentative of their generation.Both sides, activists,
0:09:14 > 0:09:25do not represent the people they represent.Nearly half Conservative
0:09:25 > 0:09:31Party members of a 65, nine out of ten are middle-class and two thirds
0:09:31 > 0:09:35are meant. That difficulty. Unit is party so well and you have known it
0:09:35 > 0:09:39at different stages...I tick those boxes myself. There is a range of
0:09:39 > 0:09:44opinions about such people. I think everybody in the Conservative Party
0:09:44 > 0:09:49knows that we need to look back to what we can do to get back to
0:09:49 > 0:09:52younger people joining as activist in our party and actually get back
0:09:52 > 0:09:58to winning support of young people electorally because the referendum,
0:09:58 > 0:10:02in particular and the general election which was roughly the same,
0:10:02 > 0:10:06it divided the generations to a bizarre extent. There are plenty of
0:10:06 > 0:10:12people under the age of 50 who ought to be natural Conservatives because
0:10:12 > 0:10:16of their approach to life and their entrepreneurial ship, their
0:10:16 > 0:10:23aspirational... They are all voting labour. Aged disappointed
0:10:23 > 0:10:27disgruntled white working class men in the north are the votes we are
0:10:27 > 0:10:35winning. We must attract the sort of people in the younger generation who
0:10:35 > 0:10:43would benefit.People like you used to be. Would a young Ken Clark
0:10:43 > 0:10:51joined the Conservative Party these days?No idea. Yes, I think I might.
0:10:51 > 0:10:57Might use... I have always been driven by my views. I add a free
0:10:57 > 0:11:01market economist and combined with a social conscience. It needs to be
0:11:01 > 0:11:05regulated and the benefit of everybody and I am internationalist,
0:11:05 > 0:11:10pro- European...And to use your own words you are impeccably working
0:11:10 > 0:11:19class.I believe in meritocracy and social mobility. That kicked off the
0:11:19 > 0:11:24start of my will, my origins.I wonder what there is about the
0:11:24 > 0:11:29Conservative Party... As a young man, you make the point why young
0:11:29 > 0:11:33people who would have voted remain, as indeed you would have, why they
0:11:33 > 0:11:37would be attracted to the Conservative Party.It can only make
0:11:37 > 0:11:42itself more attractive. It was an attractive because it was then be
0:11:42 > 0:11:47modernising and forward looking party did post war politics in the
0:11:47 > 0:11:51post-war position of Britain which had atrophied. We had been a
0:11:51 > 0:11:57laughing stock after the Suez Canal. So droves of young people joined the
0:11:57 > 0:12:00Conservative Party because of the modernising thing they were doing.
0:12:00 > 0:12:04At the moment the public eye reason more cynical and disillusioned with
0:12:04 > 0:12:09politics and I say -- than I say young people were with traditional
0:12:09 > 0:12:15politics in the 1960s. We should take an ambitious ideas of
0:12:15 > 0:12:19modernising the country, adjusting quickly to the opportunities of the
0:12:19 > 0:12:25globalised economy, sorting out our place in the world, how do we,
0:12:25 > 0:12:32nowadays, define our interest and value in wider politics, how do we
0:12:32 > 0:12:35make certain that we get our population into modern industries
0:12:35 > 0:12:40that can thrive.On those values of one nation Conservative list which
0:12:40 > 0:12:47is something you have always despised, it stands for United
0:12:47 > 0:12:52citizens around the idea that they have an obligation to each other.
0:12:52 > 0:12:57Addressing the needs of all social classes and all of that.Is that
0:12:57 > 0:13:02dead?No. I don't think it is dead. I think a large number of the public
0:13:02 > 0:13:05are attracted. It has been -- not been mobilised very well. X has
0:13:05 > 0:13:11become polarised and dominated by protest. It is becoming dominated by
0:13:11 > 0:13:16short-term media hysteria. Not your programme but the worst of the
0:13:16 > 0:13:22media, not the best of the media. And we need to go back to getting a
0:13:22 > 0:13:28grip on what is each party for, what does it seek to deliver. I would be
0:13:28 > 0:13:32attracted, I am attracted by the party that is most likely to deliver
0:13:32 > 0:13:37the kind of one nation thing you spoke about.Is at your party at the
0:13:37 > 0:13:41moment?I think so. But we are going through a bad period. Parties have
0:13:41 > 0:13:53taken a battering. Europe is... The idea that either party is United is
0:13:53 > 0:14:01ludicrous. The other thing after the referendum that Theresa May, the
0:14:01 > 0:14:04Prime Minister stood outside Downing Street and gave what many people
0:14:04 > 0:14:09said was a one nation speech, talking about the management is.You
0:14:09 > 0:14:13agree with every single word. I do wonder if there is any evidence of
0:14:13 > 0:14:17that being reflected in what she has done in the 18 months hence?We
0:14:17 > 0:14:23agree with you. It was a splendid aspiration. A splendid vision of
0:14:23 > 0:14:30what the party was. We need now the policy and the implementation of the
0:14:30 > 0:14:37policy that will enable us... What has happened so far is not going to
0:14:37 > 0:14:41inadequate he's.Is there anything you would point to that you would
0:14:41 > 0:14:46say that following through.
0:14:46 > 0:14:54Aspirations?On the things that are important to you.She was also
0:14:54 > 0:14:57talking about capitalism and the people it has left behind, she was
0:14:57 > 0:15:02talking about that in the past few days. She is talking about people
0:15:02 > 0:15:05dealing with those who take excessive pay out of the company
0:15:05 > 0:15:09when it is doing badly and pay no regards to pension rights of
0:15:09 > 0:15:15workers.18 months on and one of the reason she may have talked about it
0:15:15 > 0:15:21is that we know from the chartered Institute of personal development,
0:15:21 > 0:15:25the average FTSE 100 executive took home in the first three days of this
0:15:25 > 0:15:30year the salary of an average worker.Corporate pay generally, I
0:15:30 > 0:15:38am in the minority in this, it corporate pay has become a farce
0:15:38 > 0:15:44since the 1900. I was a chair of the remuneration committee of several
0:15:44 > 0:15:49companies and I got embarrassed about what the consultants were
0:15:49 > 0:15:56urging me and my colleagues were playing, to pay to executives.
0:15:56 > 0:16:00Theresa May says she will deal with this.If shareholder democracy
0:16:00 > 0:16:04doesn't work then I would give them more power, making their votes
0:16:04 > 0:16:09binding then we need to see what we can do to check by the way of bonus
0:16:09 > 0:16:13when companies performances don't justify it, no mathematical
0:16:13 > 0:16:16justification for it or when the payment of the executives is
0:16:16 > 0:16:24continued in two soaraway and the government is performing badly. The
0:16:24 > 0:16:28Department of business and Treasury should be working on mechanics for
0:16:28 > 0:16:32that, I am a lawyer but the legal challenges of that...You make the
0:16:32 > 0:16:40point...That is the field I would open up.When I ask about what
0:16:40 > 0:16:44Theresa May has done, son and she said after 18 months, the likes of
0:16:44 > 0:16:50your follow MPs, Ed Balls, Sarah waste have talked about her timidity
0:16:50 > 0:16:54and her lack of ambition about her government which means it constantly
0:16:54 > 0:16:58disappoint.There are people I often quite agree with, but on this
0:16:58 > 0:17:04occasion I think they are unfair to a tribute that to her and her
0:17:04 > 0:17:09personality. The fact is, Brexit is the elephant in the bath dominating
0:17:09 > 0:17:16the political life of a nation to an extraordinary extent. It is
0:17:16 > 0:17:20difficult to see how you escape from that, it will be the giant
0:17:20 > 0:17:23requirement of a government to deliver something on Brexit for the
0:17:23 > 0:17:27next two years and the Conservative Party has not yet sorted itself out
0:17:27 > 0:17:30over what compromise is going to agree to pursue.So everything else
0:17:30 > 0:17:36gets pushed out a.They are right. They are right to warn her that she
0:17:36 > 0:17:41has got to stop it being pushed out and I suspect if she were here she
0:17:41 > 0:17:47would agree in spades. She wants to do other things than Brexit.What
0:17:47 > 0:17:53about Boris Johnson? £100 million to the NHS is the Brexit dividend.The
0:17:53 > 0:17:58personal publicity day by day, it was a bridge and a channel. That is
0:17:58 > 0:18:06an attempt to rescue Boris's reputation at out the daft dishonest
0:18:06 > 0:18:10figure he was associated with during the campaign. He has obviously read
0:18:10 > 0:18:16a newspaper about people going on about spending in the NHS.That is a
0:18:16 > 0:18:24Boris being. For his own purposes. The NHS needs money.The NHS, it has
0:18:24 > 0:18:29got a lot of more money and the question is how much? You will never
0:18:29 > 0:18:33be able to satisfy anybody. As Philip Hammond and Jeremy have been
0:18:33 > 0:18:37finding, when you put more money into the NHS nobody gives you slate
0:18:37 > 0:18:45credit for it and in any use, the lobby come back asking for more and
0:18:45 > 0:18:51I have been chancellor, it has been nice for years. Actually there is a
0:18:51 > 0:18:56case for more money for the NHS because the ageing population means
0:18:56 > 0:19:02demand is rising and changing. There is a case of not just giving them a
0:19:02 > 0:19:06money, it gets blown and pressure gets taken off, great deals of
0:19:06 > 0:19:11change in the NHS, continuing to strive for higher performance is
0:19:11 > 0:19:18needed. That is being delivered by the government. And so it is not a
0:19:18 > 0:19:24simple question of how much extra of the opposition or lobby is now going
0:19:24 > 0:19:28to say they want after the last lot you gave them, it is what do you do
0:19:28 > 0:19:32with it? The Treasury cannot just throw money around, it does have
0:19:32 > 0:19:37deficit problems.So you would push back on Boris Johnson?I would say
0:19:37 > 0:19:42which packs, which department will you take the money out of to give it
0:19:42 > 0:19:46to the NHS? The serious people I would say, given the public are
0:19:46 > 0:19:50totally resistant to paying any more tax nowadays for anything, I didn't
0:19:50 > 0:19:54have quite this problem when I was Chancellor, they didn't expect the
0:19:54 > 0:19:59budget is just to be given away as precedents to everybody. Would
0:19:59 > 0:20:05probably do need more revenue. Social care first of all, and the
0:20:05 > 0:20:08NHS particularly as you make them integrate, that is where you need
0:20:08 > 0:20:13money. Where to raise it and how to responsibly raise it and how we set
0:20:13 > 0:20:17about saying to a reluctant public that this is in the public interest.
0:20:17 > 0:20:22Indeed. Also, a public that feels it is disaffected not just with
0:20:22 > 0:20:28politics but also capitalism. You make the point that you are
0:20:28 > 0:20:32effectively a social liberal but in economic terms you have always been
0:20:32 > 0:20:35a free market and of the Conservative Party.I haven't
0:20:35 > 0:20:42changed my mind, for 40 years there has been magnificent improvement in
0:20:42 > 0:20:45living that we have seen an global polity is fallen the most in
0:20:45 > 0:20:52history.Inequality and the crash and the people that feel that they
0:20:52 > 0:20:56are left behind a.That is what we all neglected. Those
0:20:56 > 0:21:00enthusiastically taking part in the great normality of the 1990s, with
0:21:00 > 0:21:06hindsight my having been reproved in the public, what we ignored at our
0:21:06 > 0:21:11peril was this wasn't benefiting everybody.What would you do now?I
0:21:11 > 0:21:15would address that question which he has addressed in speeches.What
0:21:15 > 0:21:20would you do?Talking about some of the corporate excesses, I think you
0:21:20 > 0:21:25have also got to address what are you going to do to switch on the
0:21:25 > 0:21:31economies of all those areas which the Americans call rust belt places.
0:21:31 > 0:21:34How are you going to get more investment, more of the modern
0:21:34 > 0:21:39industry to go there so steadily they can rejoin the modern world and
0:21:39 > 0:21:43derive the benefits from the globalised economy which then derive
0:21:43 > 0:21:47like everybody else. But at the moment, a lot of the electors are
0:21:47 > 0:21:50right in saying look around this town, you are doing nothing.It was
0:21:50 > 0:21:55the regions and global growth that Jim O'Neill, Lord O'Neill, the
0:21:55 > 0:22:00former chairman of common sacks were to do and said I may have got it
0:22:00 > 0:22:04wrong on Brexit. He warned about the trouble for the economy is the short
0:22:04 > 0:22:11term, as did you. -- in the short-term.I didn't.You said it
0:22:11 > 0:22:15would be unpleasant, I cannot value quite how severe but if it collapsed
0:22:15 > 0:22:18you would have severe interest rates.That didn't happen, what
0:22:18 > 0:22:24happened was a severe increase in inflation. I didn't go on that
0:22:24 > 0:22:29rubbish. The national media... I don't normally carry on about the
0:22:29 > 0:22:39media, but the national reporting of the referendum was as distressful as
0:22:39 > 0:22:43campaigning parties on the other side. All they did was support the
0:22:43 > 0:22:48rubbish on either side.In the longer term now, can you see a route
0:22:48 > 0:22:51through this process were actually the UK, instead of having four years
0:22:51 > 0:22:57being awkwardly inside the EU, sits comfortably outside?Yes, I would go
0:22:57 > 0:23:02back on the Lancaster house feature, I think we should stay in the single
0:23:02 > 0:23:05market, Customs union, I don't think the public were ever told we were
0:23:05 > 0:23:11leaving them. The Leave people reassure them that trade would not
0:23:11 > 0:23:16change, our relationships would be the same because the Germans had to
0:23:16 > 0:23:19sell us their Mercedes and the Italians their press echo. How on
0:23:19 > 0:23:24earth we have decide to lead the single market and the customs union
0:23:24 > 0:23:28for I cannot imagine because the public did not vote for that.Given
0:23:28 > 0:23:33that you at one stage were planning to stand down as an MP, but stayed
0:23:33 > 0:23:39on...That was at the end of 2020 in a full parliament, I thought. Will
0:23:39 > 0:23:48you stand down? I think this time, I will. Had I retired three years
0:23:48 > 0:23:54earlier than intended?You will see Brexit through?I am glad I didn't
0:23:54 > 0:24:00miss it. It can be chaotic, extraordinary, what I can gather,
0:24:00 > 0:24:04pretty brass off with some of the things going on in British politics.
0:24:04 > 0:24:09The silly nonsense at the moment. Actually this Parliament will decide
0:24:09 > 0:24:13some more important questions about the future of this country and the
0:24:13 > 0:24:17well-being of future generations than practically any I served in
0:24:17 > 0:24:25the.Ken Clark, thank you for coming on HARDtalk.