From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Find this item online at http://www.yougov.com/news.jsp;jsessionid=iaa4jpglq1?news.id=10012840 By Alec Marsh VISCOUNT Cranborne, a Cabinet Minster in the last Conservative government, has condemned the ban on handguns as "profoundly wrong" and said the Tories should have told the public to "grow up" in the aftermath of the Dunblane killings. In an interview with YouGov the life peer said that the "discredited" Tory government had been swept along under a wave public insanity and hysteria. MPs voted to illegalise 160,000 handguns following the murder of 16 five and six-year-olds and their teacher at school in Dunblane, Perthshire, in 1996. Asked about the ban, Lord Cranborne said: "I think we were wrong. I think we were profoundly wrong and I was part of the Government that did that. "We were swept away on this understandable tide of revulsion of Dunblane and I was as guilty as any of them. "It was very difficult to resist particularly at a time when the Government was so discredited itself." Lord Cranborne, who was sacked as shadow leader of the Lords by William Hague in 1998, continued: "It was virtually impossible. Bit of a shame really because of course the people who really misuse handguns arenÆt the competition shooters. "If you want to use a gun for illegal purposes youÆd be absolutely mad to use a registered one. It's dead easy to get one that isnÆt. "The insanity of public hysteria was demonstrated again... I feel very guilty I didnÆt fight more û I should have fought a lot more than I did. However any government worth its salt û should have used its judgement and told everybody to grow up." The peer, who compares the ban to the proposed ban on foxhunting, was Leader of the Lords from 1994 to 1997 and a junior defence minister before then. He added: "What I do think is debatable is the sheer insanity from a pragmatic practical point of view of Government of criminalising a million people who are instinctively the most law abiding people in the country. In the end that is irresponsible government." Lord Cranborne was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence, Ministry of Defence 1992-94 & Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords 1994-97 The interview in full: AM: How long do you think the remaining 92 hereditary peers will be keep their seats in the House of Lords? LC: Very interesting question. What happened was that when Hague first became party leader I went to him and said: "We got a plan, we'll tell you what the plan is, if you donÆt like the plan we'd better think of another one." "Oh he said, there's a plan is there? Basically Id better tell you I'm a strong advocate of quite a fundamental reform of their Lordships' house because I Parliament needs rebalancing. [I said:] "And I think that what this government wants is to do a stage one reform of kicking out the hereditaries, be left of a House of entirely nominated peers and leave it at that. There'll be a lot chat about stage two but it will never actually get as far as stage two. But thatÆs not good enough. So what I'd like to do is I'd like to ratchet up the pressure on the Government uttering all sorts of threats û a Battle of the Somme - and by the end of period look as though not only do we mean what we say but that we can do what we say and that by the end of this exercise the Government will come and say can we do a deal on the grounds they won't want their entire legislative programme disrupted. I actually think û and I said to Hague - that if we were to do what we threatened to do it would be thoroughly unconstitutional and I would not be prepared to do it. WeÆre not an elected house and they have been recently elected with an overwhelming majority û we were in 1945 country û and that not the point of their Lordships' house. After a bitàrather sooner than expected, Derry Irvine rang me up and said I think we ought to talk. So I rang up Hague and I said part one of the plan seems to be working, may I negotiate? I got as far as I could by about November, I rang up Hague and say, hereÆs the deal. I said well this is what we got 92 û possibility of a lot more than that.. ex-leaders who were hereditaries would get life peerages, so we asked for 100, settled for 92 but actually probably settled for about 108. He says: "It sounds alright to me, but we are going to need the approval of the Shadow Cabinetà I donÆt feel IÆve got the authority to do it on my own, what do you think?". Well I say, why donÆt we invent a very very great subcommittee of the Shadow Cabinet stuff it full of people. The first meeting was scheduled for one Thursday evening rather late û about 10ish û and I saw Hague that morning it was perfectly plain he had changed his mind but he didnÆt tell me he said he was beginning to have reservations, I would like to see it discussed in committee. So when the committee meets IÆm beginning to have slight alarm bells. SHADOW CABINET - 'SUPPORTED ABUSE OF CONSTITUTION' Throughout that discussion he said nothing. They turned me down on the grounds that û four very spurious grounds û their first reason was our policy on reform of the House of Lords is virtually indistinguishable from the GovernmentÆs; the Parliamentary Conservative Party of the House of Commons would never stand for it; three, that we were wasting an absolutely splendid opportunity to destroy the GovernmentÆs legislative programme in the House of Lords û which meant I had become the victim of my own proganda and they were pretty inadequate interpreters of the British constitution. I had become a victim of my own propaganda.. they believe that I could bugger up the Commons and what they wanted me to do - to resign and I thought well bugger it, I'll just do it anyway, so there's damn all Hague can do about it really. In my view it would have been an abuse of the constitution. The fourth reason was equally fatuous: that we gained a reputation for being inconsistent in policy terms and here we were doing another policy U-turn. I DON'T KNOW WHY HAGUE CHANGED HIS MIND I donÆt know [William Hague changed his mind]. IÆve never been in a position to ask him. IÆd be interested to know whether he denied my version of the story. In the end IÆm told he said that reason that he didnÆt like what I did in terms of policy û as opposed to going behind his back, which was the reason he sacked me û was because I had agreed to give the Government an easy ride and enable it to pass more legislation in the subsequent session. Not so. Blair rang me at home after IÆd been sacked at the weekend and said very sorry, which was civil of him, so I said: "IÆm not in the least bit sorry," and "itÆs all been rather fun," and "I look forward to our house giving you at least a harder time in the coming session as we did in the last." But itÆs a matter of judgement in how far the House of Lords pushes the Government. Hague justifies his disapproval to some audiences by saying that I had given such an undertaking. MY JUDGEMENT WAS BETTER THAN THEIRS' I think my political judgement was better than theirs and rather more seriously that any leader either of the whole House of Lords or one of the main opposition parties, very frequently finds there is conflict between his positon as leader ands his party and any leader worth their salt doesnÆt hesitate about what he thinks is good for the House of Lords, thatÆs his first responsibility. No skin off my nose. I always say the great think about politics is you shouldnÆt take it too seriously. ItÆs too serious to be taken seriously. The thing to do is to get up every morning û particularly if youÆre a minister û and say is this morning I could be sacked and I donÆt have the freehold of Chevening. Basically then itÆs huge fun, every dayÆs a bonus, and if youÆre kicked out itÆs a rough old trade but itÆs part of the game. I think if youÆve that attitude I suspect the country will be better served. I also think that weÆve forgotten and itÆs a great tragedy in British politics is that politicians have never done anything else since their A levels û all theyÆre interested in is the job and they forget that being a politician is about judgement. You can hire an expert but in the end what you owe the people you work for is your judgement. And for that you need to clear your mind from too much impedimenta about how important you are and in the end no oneÆs indispensable. WHY THE 92 HEREDITARIES ARE VITAL The reason why I was keen to keep some of the hereditaries, in view of the rhetoric the Government had expended on the hereditary peers, if we managed to keep a few the only way I could think there would be standing a reminder to them that stage one was unfinished businesses. Particularly if we went for by-elections which they are terrified of, they really are worried about the what the public effect of by-elections might be because the hereditaries show up quite well. The deal was - Derry Irvine was splendid actually, he kept every detail of our agreement without wavering - he must have been under strong pressure. What we agreed was that until a year after the next general election that it would be dead men's shoes. Thereafter if one of the 92 died it would be ballot among that particular section and of course the point being that would keep the hereditary peerage in being, they'd be reported and all that and would keep up the message û please remember stage one is unfinished business. The 92 are a standing reminder that we do need a proper stage two reform. The other difficulty is youÆve got the incentive for the Government to do something about it but the question is what do the Government want? Blair was explicit to me that he wanted a nominated house û he said that to me û and so what I think they will try and do they will try and put Wakeham B into their manifesto, which is 87 directly elected and the rest nominated. The question then will be how high a priority will they make that? ThereÆs a difficulty they have and itÆs an issue about which I think Tom Strathclyde [the Shadow leader of the House of Lords] has been very clever. He has said to the Government in public and in private: "Come on we all want a a stage two.. we think Wakeham B is inadequate but we all have a problem. The Tory party is split on what to do, the Labour party is split on what to do, and it now becomes apparent that Lib Dems are also split and if that is the situation then we ought to try and concentrate on process rather than solutions. How would we actually try and build a consensus. We need good will on all sides û the Tory party and the Lib Dems have [given that] the only people who havenÆt said that is the Government." And now says Tom, there is a ready have this mechanism to hand, which is this joint committee thatÆs floating around, why doesnÆt the Government change their mind and just say here is a useful forum for us to see whether we can build an all party consensus and please may we do so in public and lets admit that weÆre in trouble about this in our own parties. Actually the bulk of Tory peers including I suspect a high proportion of TomÆs front bench would die if there was any elected element at all in the Upper House and would fight to the death on that. Of course the same is true among the Labour peers.. all the old sweats say exactly the same thingà they donÆt want.. quite a lot of them are members of the nominated peersÆ club, who are mostly ex-MPs û and a number of Lib Dem peers in particular feel the same way, although theyÆre a bit more muted in saying so. Why donÆt they recognise that constitutional reform is better done by consensus and try and build a consensus on stage two. Wakeham himself gave three options because they couldnÆt agree on which one to go for. Clearly thereÆs a problem here so letÆs try and solve it instead of ramming through an inadequate reform which will please nobody. How long will is it going last? I think it depends entirely on whether the Government can be made to see reason. I hope that if the Tory Government is ever re-elected that they will not forget about House of Lords reform. I tried to persuade the last Government to do it and failed abysmally. LORDS' REFORM 'AT LEAST 100 YEARS OUT OF DATE' We are at least 100 years overdue on reform. My great-great grandfather when he was Prime Minister and before was advocating reform of their LordshipsÆ house so clearly he thought it was overdue a long long time ago. AM: Why do you think the British public has put up with it for so long? LC: I donÆt think itÆs ever been an issue which excited much. There is a school of thought û attractive to Governments both Labour and Conservative - which said we like a hereditary dominated House of Lords because they themselves recognise they donÆt have the authority, therefore the House of Lords is a very weak house and therefore the GovernmentÆs job much easier. The reason I want reform is a entirely pragmatic one, which is I think that House of Commons does a lousy job, itÆs entirely dominated by the Government whips office and its hardly surprising therefore thereÆs too much legislation ill-drafted, that the House of Commons has lost all respect. How do you improve that? Well I think the function of the House of Lords which canÆt do the job entirely in principle agrees to make sure the House of Commons does its job properly. In which case its got to have the authority and the independence to do that. Why the Governments liked the idea of the hereditary house was that it may have had the independence, it didnÆt have the authority, whereas if you were to reform the House of Lords and in my view put in say a 50 per cent directly elected element, elected perhaps for 12 or 15 years rolling like the US Senate, but only elected once. This would have a number of advantages, one you wouldnÆt be able to claim that the elected element had a more recent mandate than the House of Commons. If youÆre going to tbe re-elected you need the support of your party, therefore you rely very much on the support the whips will lie heavily on you. But if you are there for a long time and you canÆt be re-elected then you only need your party once and then you can tell them to lose themselves. My worry about life peers is that it is not that they will not be independent once theyÆre there, itÆs the undertakings theyÆve given before they get there. AM: How do you think the Conservatives will do at the election? LC: I havenÆt the faintest idea. The opinion polls arenÆt very encouraging and everybodyÆs feeling pretty prosperous still and to a marked degree elections are about economic issues. Having rather been disobliging about William Hague I do think heÆs the best leader weÆve got. All I can tell you is that when he was an extremely good minister and I do think based on that, that he would make a good prime minister û certainly better than Blair. BlairÆs view of the future is like one of those early 1963 B movies and actually big government, Napoleaonic institutions, regional groupings, level playing fields which outsiders have to climb like table mountain û are antediluvian and I donÆt think Blair understands that, I donÆt think heÆs had an original thought since he was at Oxford. And actually on what makes a polity work now for reason I think that Blair is in the process of probably destroying our polity just at time when weÆre doing rather well. In the Seventies when everything was going up the spout we looked at Germany û we thought thatÆs the polity of the future weÆve got to be like them, actually itÆs no longer true and I think Blair is 20 years behind the times, 30 probably. I donÆt think heÆs ever asked himself the fundamental question of what sort of polity works û in our fast-changing world and sure as Hell it isnÆt the Napoleaonic European Union. It might be a British model European Union but this one is antediluvian. AM: How many seats does Hague need to keep his leadership? LC: Firstly: youÆve never lost an election till youÆve lost it and I think the first job of any Tory is to go out and fight and you never know you can win. If I had a vote, even if William Hague lost by 100 seats I think IÆd want to keep him on. IdonÆt think itÆs a good idea to change your leader all the time. And I think you ought to give him a further crack at it. I must confess I donÆt immediately see among the candidates who I would prefer. I think that possibly that if he does lose next time, and obviously I hope he doesnÆt, I would very much like to see him give the Shadow Cabinet have a bit more to do - and he mustnÆt tell everybody the whole of his mind but he has a very buttoned up leadership style which is difficult to change. He's an extremely clever man. I never had anything to do with McKinsey but I dare say the McKinsy style lies pretty heavy on him. Perhaps one of the things he should do is become a little more û apparently more forthcoming. I would also get a lot more people to work for me banshees on policy development. Going into business supporters and say we badly need your advice on the development of policy and get the best advice for nothingà and then get some bright young men and women to put that into a policy and regurgitate it. But I also think you get to a virtuous circle. TORIES LACK GRAVITAS The Tory party at the moment lacks gravitas. ThatÆs a quotation which you could very easily take out of context. But I think William Hague would make an infinitely better prime minister than Mr Blair. Opinion polls tell us that he is not but I think that he is better liked and understood than he was. I think people admire his sheer persistence. I mean, it must have been the most ghastly job in politics anywhere when he walked in the door in 1997 û the only time IÆve seen him lose his cool was when he sacked me - and for sheer endurance and equanimity I think that he scores high. THE MONARCHY IS SAFE - AM: Do you think the axing of the hereditary peers from the house of Lords û the assault on the hereditary principle û will have an effect on the monarchy? LC: No. I donÆt notice that. ItÆs important that politicians shouldnÆt ever get their hands on the ultimate authority. It [is] the importance of the vacuum of power at he top. The answer is that when things are bad, or rough, and people are ashamed of their country itÆs a hell of a barrier. I do think that the New Labour establishment is terribly like what France was in the late 1840s. In certain portions the Cabinet is openly republican and large sections of the Labour party are too but they just know at the moment they couldnÆt get away with it. But in the end Parliamentary Government with a Queen in Parliament û that is the ultimate guarantee. If a politician in a crumpled suit takes over at the top then you get into the same trouble as France û arguably the most corrupt country in Western Europe. FOXHUNTING AM: Do you hunt? LC: Used to, used to a lot but I havenÆt for 20, 30 years. AM: Do you regard it as immoral? LC: People who are against hunting, you wonÆt convince them û theyÆre too passionate about it. People who do hunt feel that if people who donÆt actually went and experienced it they might feel rather different. One thing that isnÆt debatable is the sheer insanity from a pragmatic practical point of view of Government of criminalising a million people who are instinctively the most law abiding people in the country. In the end that is irresponsible government. AM: But the Conservatives have been accused of doing the same thing over the ban on handguns? TORY BAN ON HANDGUNS 'PROFOUNDLY WRONG' LC: Yes. I think we were wrong. I think we were profoundly wrong and I was part of the Government that did that. We were swept away on this understandable tide of revulsion of Dunblane and I was as guilty as any of them. It was very difficult to resist particularly at a time when the Government was so discredited itself. It was virtually impossible. Bit of a shame really because of course the people who really misuse handguns arenÆt the competition shooters. If you want to use a gun for illegal purposes youÆd be absolutely mad to use a registered one. ItÆs dead easy to get one that isnÆt. The insanity of public hysteria was demonstrated againà I feel very guilty I didnÆt fight more û I should have fought a lot more than I did. However any government worth its salt û should have used its judgement and told everybody to grow up. What I do think is debatable is the sheer insanity from a pragmatic practical point of view of Government of criminalising a million people who are instinctively the most law abiding people in the country. In the end that is irresponsible government. AM: Would you be prepared to risk a ú5,000 to make a point? LC: I'd start off by saying that if there's a rule of law then you must obey the law. The whole point about Parliamentary government is why do you and I do what governments tell us on the whole because we have the opportunity to kick them out at least once every five years. The problem at the moment is of course institutions don't work and that large part of our life is ruled from outside - people who we haven't the opportunity either to hold to account or to sack - Whitehall and Brussels and Judiciary. The result is that it took us several hundred years to effectively until the 20th century to acquire a habit of being law abiding.. I think all that's been thrown away now. Increasingly I don't think the deal works anymore and when the majority of people instinctively said until not too long ago.. there's parts of the system I don't like, I'd like to change but broadly speaking I like the system. So the police others could concentrate on the fringes but now more and more people don't buy that any more.. then the forces which have to keep the system going, no matter how much money you spend on them are inadequate and so the deal breaks down. LAW AND ORDER - BREAKING DOWN I think that's what's breaking down and I think the acceptance of the rule of law is going to come increasingly into question - it is already. The law becomes an ass. I think that's true about hunting as well. All one's instincts should be to observe the law but since the system is system is defying itself people are increasingly going to say, well, what's it doing for me? That's what I think the danger to Mr Blair is and he doesn't understand that. I don't know.. the fact that I don't know I find rather worrying, because I think five years ago I would have said it is criminal for the Government to do such things but I must obey the law. I'm beginning to wonder now. Mass civil disobedience has got a very honourable record and of course that part of how polities like this work. I'd prefer if there wasn't a rut. Find this item online at http://www.yougov.com/news.jsp;jsessionid=iaa4jpglq1?news.id=10012840 -- I think they've made an editorial error in his comment on handguns as the last paragraph appears to be to do with foxhunting. Steve. Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ____________________________________________________________ T O P I C A -- Learn More. Surf Less. Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Topics You Choose. http://www.topica.com/partner/tag01
