YouSaid · the spoken record

Ken Clarke

lines on the record: 48
first: 2019-09-27
most recent: 2019-09-27
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Well, my favorite jazz is Bop and Har Bop. Now, Ornick Coleman started off a dreadful wave of atonal jazz, and some of it was quite interesting. Ornick Coleman at first was quite interesting. Most of it was an excuse for people who couldn't really master the instrument, actually get away and claim that the discord was some tremendous voice of protest. But jazz has got out of discord a bit. Politics has fallen into the worst discord I've ever heard in the House of Commons.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's the last defining fight of my life, in a way. Yes, because of this daft idea, this irresponsible idea of having a referendum in order to shut up the back benches of the Conservative Party, we've thrown into this situation which will determine Britain's role in the world politically for the next two generations. That's what keeps me in politics and makes me regret, I'm retiring, but I am, as you pointed out to me, very, very old.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, can't be accused of not being determined politicians. Every politician of my generation has long ago retired. Dennis Skinner and I are the only two people left who've been there so long. Some of my colleagues who I was in the cabinet with went to the House of Lords 20 years ago. Did you know that? That's a political addict.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Any bar two things I've got to state again. I've got a lot of friends to try to persuade me of that, but it's been right.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, because we'd had this unnecessary election called three years earlier than I intended. So I thought, am I going to retire three years earlier than I thought, or should I take the risk of putting it off for a couple of years?”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and I. Isn't it with no deal? I knew you bring that. Every interviewer brings it up with me because it's such fun. Do I think it's likely? No. And whether I ever be a two month prime minister is a kind of funny footnote. What matters is what is that government formed to do and will it deliver it? Because going back to it, I mean, this is a very nice, relaxed conversation. This is all fascinating political stuff. What matters is the governance of a sophisticated, really fairly prosperous country in this difficult, dangerous modern world. And this is just a way of getting through a crisis and then the next generation of politicians got to repair our political system, deal with some of the other problems in the world. Most important statement we had yesterday was on Iran. Nobody took the slightest notice of it.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Surprise me now. I think Boris gets into trouble when he does that, but somehow perhaps because I have been around for so long, I haven't for some time got into trouble doing that.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You've never done that. I normally don't prepare speeches anyway. And some of the ones that I'm told go viral on social media now to my amusement when I get speeches in the House of Commons once I've just got up and said off my head.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Seeing if I can make as big a difference to national well-being as I think Thatcher and Heath Thatcher Major certainly did.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It'd be fun, yeah. Let me be honest, yes, of course it'll be fun, but it wouldn't really be what I mean. Obviously at one point I demonstrated I wanted to be Prime Minister would amuse me, it would give me a wry amusement. Well, in a kind of a way I've done it, I would say, but it's not what I was really after. I'd have liked to have five years.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Margaret Beckett, Harriet Harmon. Ken Clark, Hilary Ben. One attraction of all the names you're giving, and it may be true of some of the ministers, is veterans, rather surprised to be taking having a job again, no future political careers that they're bothered about, no threat to anybody. If you are having politicians trying to win back the respect of the public, saying you can get cross-party agreement on the long-term national interest, can get cross-party agreement get you out of this appalling crisis that's threatening our political institutions that we've fallen into. It's probably best be led by people who used to be controversial but aren't so controversial now. And dare I say so, who have been there before so will know how to look after a White Hall department.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You've gotten to some of the issues. That's why I like being interviewed by you. Very few people do. It almost doesn't matter who leads it. Jeremy is such a red rag to a bull. He's a political opponents have succeeded him in making one of the most demon figures in the country. He's the best argument Boris Johnson's going to have actually in an election. The Labour Party will be streets in the lead if it wasn't for Jeremy Corbyn. And so someone's got to persuade Jeremy that for symbolic reasons there just will be more MPs on side if he's not the leader than there will.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, you have to try and persuade him. See, the real fun that everybody is enjoying, the reason this idea gets slightly discredited, it's a backstop anyway. I prefer just to legislate. Everybody gets really excited about who's going to leave it. That's another problem with modern politics.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But whatever you've agreed to, signed up to in blood, you mustn't deviate from because this all party government will fall apart instantly if any of the parties to it start hairing off on some new idea of their own.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Referendum election. That's right. To get a majority, you need the Lib Dems and the Scottish Nationalists. I'd have some conversations with them over the years. I nearly got them to get my permanent customs union over the line. But right now, their first reaction is, no, you're talking about leaving Europe. We're not going to do that. And say, well, I think they could be open to say, look, you've got to get out of the mess we are now. You've talked about limited deals before. Let's agree this soft Brexit with the other 27, and then you can have your second referendum, and then you can campaign for Remain, and then we'll see whether people want to leave with a deal that keeps the economy intact or they want to go back to being full members of the EU. Do you think it's a package?”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It looks after the shop until you actually got leaving the EU with a withdrawal agreement and committed the objectives. Probably the Europeans would accept them very readily of staying with our borders open, some sort of customs union, some sort of regulatory alignment, our trade flowing. Actually, you'd have a great boost immediately to the economy. So you could leave on a high note and say, now we'll have an election and the new government can negotiate the long-term arrangements.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The child starts to intervene in the market. You've got to have acceptable That could happen if you start lasting too long, that you have to have ministers, as you say, to look after the shop, and maybe one or two day-by-day crises, which have to be sufficient common sense and cross-party agreement to handle them. You have to do the job. You wouldn't have a long-term policy. You wouldn't be reforming anything. Whenever I've been a minister, I've always been reforming something. But you can't in this government, it's multi-party and it's temporary.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, if Boris won't, he can't defy the law. Assuming Parliament's past, it put it into legal form, and then he steps down, somebody else does. Somebody else will only be a nominal Prime Minister. Because if you went, you're trying to get me onto the government of national unity or party government of national unity. Such a government would be a partly temporary thing. It wouldn't be able to agree on any policies and anything else. You'd have to get me and the Corbynistas agreeing on anything except... Simply the basic aspects of Europe. And so you'd have a government”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the majority in Parliament should legislate. That would be my preference. If we can marshal a majority, the final compromise I've described, that would get us through to leaving, whether with preliminary withdrawal agreement, then you have a general election, because however we leave this year, this is only the start, public groan, when you remind them, of a few years of negotiations on our permanent arrangement. But I'm sure we won't get...”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What I think you might have to concede is soft Brexit, customs union, some sort of regulatory alignment as our negotiating aims, and then a referendum on that preliminary deal with the alternative staying in. And then you get enough people in Parliament to support that. And then, of course, the second referendum will decide it once and for all.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the way to get a majority, which involves me making another concession, because I have been, I've compromised we're leaving, so let's leave without wrecking our economy. I think to get it through, I'm going to have to pay some attention to the people's vote people. We've got three groups in Parliament, hardline Brexiteers, no deals with foreigners, out free and alone, soft Brexiteers like me, leave politically, but let's keep our economy intact. And then, no, no, no, not leaving at all. Going to have a second referendum. People change their minds. We're going to win. Now, as nobody can get two of those three to a lie, a total deadlock, which exactly reflects public opinion.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think Parliament could. Up until now, it hasn't. I think it might. I tried to pass a motion for a permanent customs union, a loss by three votes, and like as always happens, you can think of half a dozen people who should have been with you, and I nearly got the Scot Nats with me.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I'm one of the people who thinks we should deliver what's called a soft Brexit. I'd love to revoke Article 50. That would be in best national interest in my view. But we're not going to be able to persuade Parliament to do that. We'll enrage people if we do that. So let's leave politically and work out in due course what our role in the world is now and save our trading economic links. We're all supposed to be in favour of free trade. There's absolutely no point in having tariffs and customs procedures in the way of our exports. So open border at Dover, open border at Hollyhead, open border at Ireland, leave the soft Brexit.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We didn't sell it. One thing nobody did was advocate the merits of the European Union. Britain, compared with the joke we've been in the 1970s, was actually getting stronger, more influential in the world. We were getting a modern competitive economy. A quality of our life was going up in the 1990s, early 2000s, we were doing terribly well. A lot of that was because of the role we got in the world and the EU. And no Prime Minister, even Tony Blair. I can never get Tony Blair to sell it. He didn't do it when he was abroad because he'd upset people and they didn't want to alarm the very angry nationalist opinion that you were upset when you said that.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like you say, you don't want to hear the pooling sovereignty argument. I mean, you better leave United Nations in a hurry. You can't stay in NATO. You certainly can't have anything to do with the World Trade Organization because there are foreign judges there that resolve disputes and all rest of it. When you sign a treaty with anybody, you pool your sovereignty. Any treaty, a trade deal with Donald Trump, if that fantasy is ever realised, will involve both sides agreeing they will do certain things and they won't do other things and binding themselves to be committed and you have to negotiate and you have to compromise have to be pragmatic, keep your eye on the ball is this advantageous on balance to us. That's what politics is about. If you want to opt out of that you're opting out of the modern world. You can go back and watch films of the Second World War and be brave little England again.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because everything took so long, you could achieve so little in a day sometimes. The more members we got, 28 people all have to speak were held up because of one of the Maltese ministers got a hang up, which is all to do with Maltese politics last week and all that. Now, as I got more experience being pompous and boring, it's the only way you can run an international body. I've never done much at the United Nations. I've been there, but I'm sure the United Nations is even more infuriating.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But on the other hand, in a way, it all irritating, but I was one of the most assiduous attenders. I've been to more Council of Ministers meetings than most people have had hot dinners.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The ones who have aspirations in this world, they like the modern world. They're doing well in the global economy. They feel European in favour of it. That's always split society. The thing that's been added, why leave one, was just the people who'd been left behind by the modern economy, the angry, older, disappointed people. The pit's gone, the foundry's gone, everybody's got any education's cleared off to London. Nobody's doing anything for Barnsley. And the referendum for them was a classic opportunity to show how angry they were with all politicians the establishment. Foreigners, immigrants, Muslims, everything”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I'm not a politician just moans about the press all the time, but I think Conrad Black buying the Daily Telegraph in order to turn it into an anti-European newspaper was a big influence on the Conservative Party, but I won't go there. The other thing is that behind it all is there are a big, unanswered question. The British press were not comfortable with their role in the world. I mean, we divide largely my generation, the older ones, who think, oh, they don't like the way everything's changed. Things were better as they used to be, much better when we ran everything ourselves, you know. And we're getting more and more people talk to me about the Dunkirk spirit and all this kind of thing now than have done for years. But this underlying feeling that, you know, we're a little island nation, we're a tough nation. We on our own won the war. And why don't we just run things our own? Now, younger people and the successful people...”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You were a much better tempered debate hours, days, nights of debate, and it was all pretty serious stuff. I mean, people got very excited”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm not always they learn. I voted for leaving three times now in the House of Commons. It's the right wing who've stopped us leaving.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One of my first memories of you is almost having a fight with Norman Tebby. The things I think ought to be done. And usually, I mean, I'm not Thatcher minister. All our policies were unpopular. The public doesn't like change, just wants you to give them and any lobbyists some more money. If you need a structural change, you take tough, difficult decisions, you argue the toss about why you're doing it, you argue the toss with the people who criticise you, and you hope that if it works, if you haven't screwed things up, as things steadily get a bit better, the public opinion changes and come round to you.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm so laid back I'm almost horizontal except I ought to be less competent if I'm even getting competent with you correcting your shoes and quotes and things I am competitive and all the rest of it but”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Secretary of State for Health are the most unpopular man or woman in the country at the time. It goes with the job, has since 1948, the only ones that aren't are the ones that don't do anything.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the mirror, I confess. Which from memory. Some trade union press officer managed to find some gullible journalists to put it in and improved the quote.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was one of the arguments I was having was the ambulance drivers was I offered to pay more to the ones that have paramedic training. And the union repaid that. It's one of the things we're debating. They say it's not our job. You're making us take other people's jobs. We're drivers. And most of them went backwards and forwards in London between being tube drivers and ambulance drivers, depending on which was better paid. So I did make some remark about them being drivers. I think the mirror you've added.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That was parodied by the press. They accurately quoted that every time I spoke to them, they felt for their wallets. That wasn't what I said. But that was the BMA's version that they gave to some gullible journalist.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I didn't stop when I first began to be teased about my suede shoes, which, as you know, I always point out, are not hush poppies. I don't think Hush Poppies make suede shoes, but I've given up protesting that. No, my first reaction when I was a young MP and people started making diary pieces about my almost wearing these suede shoes, we thought, oh, must go out and get some blast of black shoes, you know, stop all the shoes. And then I said to myself, what the hell am I doing? Why should anybody else decide what kind of shoes I wear? So it was sheer bloody-mindedness made me stick, which was my personal preference. I always say they'll come back into fashion again someday.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Boris doesn't have any convictions. He doesn't have any strong views on policy. He's brilliant at photo opportunities. Ah, but you see what?”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I ignored my party when Ian Duncan Smith supported the invasion of Iraq. It was not the first time I've defied my party because it was a wrong decision. I meant all the image.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not really. Because the one thing that's always governed, I certainly have always been a conviction politician. That's what I liked about being a Thatcher minister. I actually am a lifelong believer in the European project. I was drawn into politics by an application to join Europe, I fought for our membership of Europe in my first parliament. Whenever I run for the leadership of the Conservative Party, my followers said, make a Eurosceptic speech, you're too European. And I said, and I fused, wasn't going to make a speech I didn't believe in. I'll stop protesting.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's happened in every Western democracy people like this emerged. Now, that isn't where Boris was, but he's so anxious to become Prime Minister that a series of events have carried him there, and now he's completely trapped. He's trying to get Farage's votes. It's older white working class voters in the North he's after, and they hate politicians, they hate London, they hate parliament, and they're vehemently leave, and he's pitching to them. And he aroused deliberately all this anger so he can go out and say it's a dead parliament, shouldn't be there, frit of an election, all this stuff.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, firstly, most of his critics are not trying to overturn the referendum. That's just a quite deliberate lie. It's part of his campaign. He, I think, probably would quite like a deal on this preliminary point, but he's resigned himself to fate. The things he said he can't get out of leaving with no deal. And he's got to blame other people for that, wicked Europeans, you know, Jean-Claude Juncker, Barnier, foreign accents, funny people, all their fault, and parliamentarians, MPs, all these people who wasted three and a half years. They take the blame. And then he caused a quick election before the 31st of October, if you possibly can, fights it on the two platforms. I'm bringing it all to an end, which is not. And above all, I'm standing up for the people against Parliament, you know, vote for me. I'm not a politician, really. He's going for the Donald Trump vote. He's going for the Salvini vote. He's going to...”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm afraid it's deliberate, it's contrived. Boris is not a keen Brexiteer. He only became a Brexiteer by accident. Of all the politicians I know, I don't think he has very strong views one way or the other of whether it should be in the European Union. It was the accident of the time that made him make a last minute decision to give it a run on the Brexiteer side when the referendum was called. And he's got himself boxed in the term.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Anger, extremism, intolerance of other people's views, shouting abuse, Parliament had better behaved than the people they represent, but in the public arena, that's usual. And I don't go on social media, but my middle-aged children assure me that social media, political exchanges, rapidly descend to personal abuse. It's the mood of the times.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But that was symbolic. I don't remember Michael Hessel going in for personal abuse. I've never fallen out with anybody personally over political disagreements. I get on perfectly well with people I flatly disagree with Jeremy Corbyn, Nigel Farage. I never fall out with them. I'm on perfectly good terms with quite a lot of the incurably hardline Brexiteers in the Conservative Party. I never used personal abuse. I'm very critical of their views sometimes, but I don't do that. But that's the modern fashion. I mean, Parliament exactly reflects the public.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, there's never been a crisis like that in anybody's lifetime now living. We've got to go back. I went and dig into history, you've got about decades to find anything remotely like this. No, my last parliament, I don't have this feeling, you know, been here, done this. What am I still doing this for? I have never seen anything like it. It's a mad farce with rather important consequences.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly reflects the public. Anger, extremism, intolerance of other people's views, shouting abuse. Parliament are better behaved than the people they represent, but in the public arena, that's usual.”
2019-09-27 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ken Clarke One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source