William Hague, defeated but not diminished: 'I'm telling everyone, don't feel sorry for me'

WH: I feel fine, I tell everyone, don't feel sorry for me or for Ffion, I feel sorry for the candidates who didn't get elected and the activists in the party who worked so hard, but I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me, I'm fine. For one thing I'm still quite busy, for another I'm still leading the Opposition in Parliament, there's been the State opening of Parliament, question time, there is a lot to do in the constituency, particularly because of foot-and-mouth.

I am comfortable with the decision I made to resign although I would have preferred to carry on, but I think it was the right thing to do, and so now I am getting on with doing those things, leading the opposition in Parliament for the moment, representing the constituency and yet having a little more time off than normal.

Ffion and I so far have had one long weekend away and we will have a good holiday in August. That weekend was the most we have been able to get in so far and I've been able to spend a bit more time at home and that is very good, so there is a pleasant, personal side to having a bit more free time as far as family, friends and general leisure are concerned.

I would rather have carried on, but I had thought about it for a long time already. I'd thought about it for 18 months or so. If the party didn't make a significant advance in this election, there would need to be a change of leader, so while it may have been a bit of a shock to other people, I already knew what I was going to do.

MW: Have people treated you differently?

WH: A little bit. Political opponents treat you differently in this situation. It's slightly as if you died, they start being kind about you and saying things they would never had said before, so now Tony Blair pays little tributes to me in the House of Commons, and he has never done that before. Labour MPs come up to me and say they have a lot of respect for how I spoke in the House of Commons and they wouldn't have said that before, but that's human nature and it would be churlish not to take that in the spirit that it is meant, so that's fine.

A lot of people have come up to me, you probably heard them in a market place today, and said "Oh, we are so disappointed Mr Hague".

I have had thousands and thousands of letters including many hundreds from constituents and they're very touching and they're very kind and very supportive and that's quite warming really, quite heart-warming.

MW: You have had a short period of reflection since June 7. Did you ever consider leaving politics altogether? Maybe you are even still considering it.

WH: I'm not really considering it, I haven't decided all the things I want to do but I have decided that I want to stay in Parliament. I intend to stand for Parliament here in Richmond at the next election. With the support of the local association and local people I will tell the Richmond Conservative Association AGM tonight that I intend to fight the next election.

People here have been extremely loyal to me and very supportive and helpful towards me and I want to go on repaying that loyalty, I'm loyal to this area. I mean that in two ways, in a sense of energetically representing it in this Parliament, but also in my intention to stand for Parliament again in the next election.

I have no definite plans. It does not mean that I am planning anything other in politics other than to represent the constituency and to take up particular issues from time to time. Obviously countryside and rural issues will be very high on my agenda and I will develop some other interests aside from politics. I haven't decided what those will be.

I have been offered some jobs and positions and projects already, but I haven't accepted any of them and I am not going to do so for a while, I am just going to reflect, I am going to take my time to decide what additional things I might do.

MW: You said that rural issues are matters you are going to spend more time on. How do you think you might do that, are you talking solely in the Parliamentary context, select committee work, that sort of thing?

WH: Certainly in a Parliamentary context. Just because I won't be leading the Prime Minister's questions on Wednesdays doesn't mean I can't be active in Parliament in many other ways and so I will still want to speak about rural matters and talk about what I hope will be the aftermath of the foot-and-mouth crisis, to help the rural economy to recover.

But I might also write about countryside issues, so there are many different ways to bring these things up. There is a huge job to be done describing to the rest of the nation what is really happening in the British countryside, on the state of the rural economy

There is terrible ignorance in many government circles, in some urban communities, about rural life and I think that I can do something about that. I think I can use the fact that I am well known to the advantage of my constituents and the area that I represent. But not just in Parliament, I may be commenting and speaking or writing outside Parliament as well.

MW: Do you think that writing could become an additional career option.

WH: I don't know, I mean we'll have to see, I mean I'm more into speaking than writing. I see anything that I do as an addition rather than a substitute for Parliamentary work and so it will have to be compatible.

I would be misleading you to say that I am definitely going to do this, I am definitely going to do that, I am not at that stage. I'm letting people have lots of ideas and I'm having a few ideas, but I haven't decided about any of them, and it will take a couple of months to do that, I think. There are certainly some personal hobbies that I am going to pursue.

MW: I was going to ask you that. What are the things outside politics you might now have more time to do.

WH: I will have more time to be at home with my wife, or indeed out with my wife, and that is very nice. I have always tried to have Sundays off and spent Sundays around here, but I realised this last Sunday that I haven't really being having Sundays off, because this was the first Sunday at home that the telephone wasn't ringing all the time and there weren't thousands of letters to sign

MW: When you say you had Sunday off, is that when you would have nothing in the diary, socially or at work and that it really was for you and Ffion.

WH: We have normally done that. But when you are leader of a political party, decisions, crises, telephones calls, letters, speeches to prepare, all intrude into that time, so that is what I mean now. I can feel it is different already, now we really can have Sunday at home and not intrude into it and that is very pleasant, so there is more time for things like that.

MW: Things like walking, which I know you enjoy.

WH: There will be more time for things like walking in the hills, although not at the moment with all the footpaths closed, but there will be in due course, and more time to do my sport, judo. I shall pursue that even more energetically.

RAF Leeming is re-opening their judo club, so I got my blue belt last year and I will work on the brown belt now. I will do a bit more of that and a bit more running and I suppose I will be able to have slightly more holidays than in the past.

I also want just a bit more time to linger in my constituency. I have always had a full programme of constituency engagements but I have missed not being able to wander or drive around, spending a few hours just talking to whoever I meet, which I used to do quite a bit of when I was first elected a member for Richmond. I would like to do that again, see more people and know more people spontaneously and informally.

I think that way you get really in touch with what is happening, because it is not just people telling you things that are pre-arranged at meetings. I shall just drive around and I shall stop and talk to people running a shop, or a garage, and I shall just walk down the streets and I am looking forward to doing that.

MW: Apart from the current and obvious preoccupation with foot-and-mouth in the constituency, are there particular constituency issues that you would like to devote more time or attention to that perhaps you haven't been able to.

WH: Well, they are in the rural economy. Foot-and-mouth is of course part of that but there is a, I think, some things which need doing permanently. For instance, the idea of reducing business rates for rural shops, pubs, garages, shops and post offices. There has been a measure of rate relief brought in but it could be more widely available. If I had won the election, money from the regional development agencies would have been re-directed to rate reductions for small businesses in rural areas.

There is the question of what more could be done for market towns, an issue which the Darlington & Stockton Times has been pioneering, and making sure that this area gets its fair share of support for that, one or two local towns have benefited from local grants.

MW: Where we are now, in Richmond town. I was talking to a commercial estate agent last week who said that Richmond was now the weakest town in the area in terms of yields on commercial property..

WH: It is astounding that it is like that, but it is true. When you look, Richmond is not well served by the availability of shops, despite the best efforts of people who are actually engaged in business here. There is a lot to be done although I don't have a magic solution to that.

There are other issues. There is a growing issue here of health care provision. We've had the St John of God hospital decision at Scorton, and of course the military hospital closed at Catterick. So for some people the growing remoteness of hospital facilities is a concern.

MW: And also management of those facilities, if the management migrates as is currently suggested from Northallerton to South Tees.

WH: I am going to have a meeting in a few weeks with the health authority to start discussing all this from a constituency perspective. Over the coming months I think that will become more of an issue rather than less. There are also renewed proposals on the table about primary care trusts and I think over the next year the MP for Richmond should be quite heavily involved in health matters.

And of course we have to see if we can put any final spoke in the wheel of the pylons. We have tried everything and it is hard to think of anything more one can do about it. I don't hold out much hope of stopping it, but it is still a local issue.

MW: Are you planning to start a family?

WH: Well, whenever it is, it won't be announced in advance, even to the Darlington & Stockton Times. We would like to have a family at some stage, we intend to have a family, but I have always been very clear that that will not be the dictated by a political timetable. It is quite nice that the political timetable intrudes a bit less into our lives, certainly I shall have more time for family and more time for my existing family. I shall have more time to spend with Ffion and who knows what the effect of that might be.

MW: Do you regret now becoming leader of your party when you did. A number of people have said to me it's a real shame that you became leader in 1997. Many say that if you had held back a Parliament perhaps you would have been better placed, ultimately, to become prime minister?

WH: No, I don't feel that at all very much. People say that but I don't regret it in anyway for all kinds of reasons.

I don't really believe in having regrets and I think life takes a particular course and there is often a good reason for that. You make the most of whatever the situation at the time, but also I think that it is a mistake to plan and calculate a political career to the extent of saying I am not going to do this job that needs doing because I can selfishly hang back for 10 years.

I think it is often a mistake and often opportunity only knocks once and you should take that opportunity then. Also I have found it a fascinating and highly enjoyable experience. Yes, it has had its stresses and strains and I am only slightly exaggerating when I say I have enjoyed every day of it, I have enjoyed nearly every day of it and I think I have learned an enormous amount and I will now be able to do all kinds of things that I could not do before, including the way I represent my constituents as a former party leader.

There will be many more things that I can do, I have met people all over the world, I have learnt things about different countries. I have been to every town and city of the United Kingdom, I have seen how government works on the inside. This has been an extraordinary, fascinating, four years in anybody's life, so I certainly don't regret that in any way and who knows I might have refused to do it four years ago and never had to chance again, so I don't regret that at all.

MW: Looking back at the four years of your Conservative party leadership now, do you have a sense of failure.

WH: No, I am disappointed that we did not achieve all our objectives, but I think I have laid some strong foundations for the party's future.

I think the party's chances in the next election will be much better than they ever were for the last election, partly because the government will be much older than it was at this last election, but also over a lot of things I have sorted out in the Conservative party - the way its organisation works, and its finances.

Four years ago when I took over, we used to have the party split down the middle over Europe and we have pretty much resolved and moved on from that now, at least I hope we have.

MW: Probably a lot of people might differ with you on that point.

WH: Well, look at the Conservative party in this campaign. Whatever people thought about the party, whether they voted for it or not, it fought a much more cohesive and united campaign than the one four years before.

We didn't have hundreds of candidates writing opposite things (to party policy) in their election addresses, which is what we had four years before.

So all of that has been done, and I think that despite the defeat there is now an enthusiasm within the party and we now need to involve many other people in that enthusiasm. We fought for a lot of things we believe in and so I tend to feel defeated but not diminished. I think there are some good foundations there to build on and not only for my successors to build on but also my mistakes to build on, where people think I did things wrong. They will be able to avoid in the future doing the same thing again.

MW: In relation to your mistakes can you identify one particular thing which you say "Oh I wish we hadn't done that?"

WH: Well I might comment on these things more extensively in the future, but one obvious one is that I wish I had stopped Jeffrey Archer at an earlier stage, I don't suppose that would arise again anyway. Everybody has learnt about that.

That's an example of a mistake or something I wish I had done different, but there may be other things, but I will talk about those on another occasion, but my general point is that it will be a benefit to my successor to inherit some things that I did sort out and I did do well and it will also be a benefit to my successor to learn from things that didn't go well.

Some things will have been tried that they won't want to try again. So I feel the party will be further on after the last few years. They are certainly nearer to government now than when I took over four years ago.

MW: A key question and surely a frustration for you is that that the clear affection many of your constituents feel for you, based upon face-to-face encounters, was not translated into the national arena and the way you were received by the population as a whole.

WH: It is a bit frustrating and I don't know what the answer to that is. I may never know what the answer to that is, and certainly I felt that all the things that were said about me weren't really about me, they were just about somebody else whose perception of me was quite different from what I am really like and that may not be uncommon in politics.

I don't believe in complaining about that sort of thing, I don't believe it is anybody else's fault, so I have never complained about the media or anybody else in those matters, but yes, it is a bit frustrating for the people who know you to be, as you say, very supportive and then a wider audience not to feel the same thing. Obviously I wish we'd found a way of getting everybody to feel the warm support that so many people here in Richmond give me.

MW: There were many times during your leadership where Labour was really having quite a hard time, with the Conservatives getting punches in and scoring points but the polls just didn't respond. Why was that?

WH: I think that is partly to do with other things though. There was a lot of apathy and a lot of people didn't follow politics or the election in detail at all and that was reflected in the very low turn out, appallingly low, which is very sobering and a warning to all of us.

That made it harder for an Opposition party if a large part of the country had tuned out of politics. I hope that will change over the next few years, but we will have to work on it and it is disturbing that there is so much apathy about politics. It not sufficient to blame the people for that, the problem is somewhere in the political system, somewhere in what we politicians do and we have to try and put that right.

MW: I suppose the common perception after the election among political commentators was that the people as a whole decided this election is a done deed and we know who is going to win.

WH: There was a bit of that, yes, that certainly would have pushed the turnout out down further, but I think it was a mixture of things.

There were a lot of people who had decided they didn't want the Conservatives in power in 1997 and they had hopes for a Labour government. Then they found the promises made by Labour weren't delivered and hence they just ended up disillusioned with everybody and not really in a mood to say, well can we go back again to the Conservatives. I think there was just a general disconnection from politics.

MW: By young people I think. I don't know if there has been any analysis done on that.

WH: Yes, actually I would think that is pretty true

MW: It was interesting during the election campaign that you did know what was number one in the music charts. I thought there had been a bit of careful planning there.

WH: No, I knew what a muggle was because I had read the Harry Potter book. So it wasn't a briefing.

MW: That business about connecting with young people. Have politicans ever connected with young people?

WH: I don't know, that is a good question. I think it is a bigger problem now because there are so many things to do.

There is a huge number of activities available to young people which were not there before. You can see this today in the relative weakness of the youth movements in all political parties. They have just about disappeared in the Labour party and we have had to scrap the Young Conservatives and start again with a new organisation called Conservative Future, but they are very small compared to 20 or 30 years ago. There are many more competing priorities.

I will do my best locally to involve young people, I visit schools regularly, I do questions and answer sessions and I will continue to do that through this Parliament

MW: Can we finish on foot-and-mouth. Our front page reports the outbreak at Bishopdale.

WH: And there has been another one since you went to press.

MW: Yes, and we have a second report on that front page about national park staff in the North York Moors taking a lot of flak from folk over the footpath closures. There is real tension now building between the farming community and the tourism industry over how cautious we should be about access to the countryside

WH: Well I am generally on the cautious side. We have obviously got to eradicate the disease otherwise we will never solve the problem for everybody and so I can't see how authorities can just generally re-open footpaths in North Yorkshire at the moment. There may be particular places that they can do so and in parts they have done so. There may be footpaths quite near to some of the affected areas that are nowhere near livestock and never have been so I am all in favour of being pragmatic about it, but a general re-opening I think would be a mistake.

MW: Ultimately, a general re-opening is the only thing that will work, because if you say to people some footpaths will be open, the people aren't prepared to travel to an area on the off chance that one part may be open and one part isn't.

WH: Yes, that's right and I think we have to help the other businesses in other ways, because they do have a desperate problem, I've had letters from some businesses that are just walking businesses, who take people on walks, well obviously their business is zero, and there are riding stables in exactly the same situation. The figures from the upper Wensleydale business association are terrible, they do need help in other ways. I put forward in the election a strategy for recovery which included tax free loans, permanent reductions in business rates which we were talking about

I also included much more funding for the English tourism council and British tourist authorities so that the promotion can take place and the booking of the advertising space can take place and when people can come back there will be a lot of promotional advertising and all of that could be being done now, far too little is being done now.

MW: Some people have suggested there has been a sense that the Labour government has turned off foot-and-mouth, that it's sorted.

WH: Yes, there is. I raised it at Question Time this week in Parliament but they looked at me with a slight air of "Oh, is he going back to this". But of course I'm going back to this, its rife, there are two cases in Bishopdale in the last few days.

I will continue to press for the kind of measures I was advocating before as well as for compensation for irrecoverable losses on farms, more widely than is available now, as well as urgent measures to stop it coming into the country again.

We don't know how it got here, but we should stop importing meat from countries that have got foot-and-mouth. It is unbelievable that that is still carrying on.

And we must have a public and independent inquiry into the origins of and the handling of the disease.

Mr Blair said they will have a proper inquiry. I am very suspicious about this word "proper". Of course it will be proper, but will it be public? Will it be independent? And will it be thorough, that's what we want to know?

It's very strange that all of the ministers responsible for handling foot-and-mouth before the election, with the exception of Mr Blair himself, have now being removed or sacked from the government and now the civil servants are all being shuffled round into the new department of rural affairs, food etc and so it begins to look, by the time we come to investigate it, there will be nobody there.

Everything will have changed, the branch of the department that handled it will no longer exist, the minister that took the decision will no longer be in office.

That says to me we will need a bigger, fuller enquiry rather than a lesser one. Not as a vendetta against anybody, but to make sure all the lessons have been learned.