Rt Hon Michael Howard MP
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.3 • 14.3K Ratings
🗓️ 4 July 2004
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the leader of the Conservative Party, Michael Howard.
He was raised in an orthodox Jewish family in Llanelli, South Wales, where his parents ran ladies' fashion shops. In the Labour-supporting, rugby-playing valleys, the teenage Michael preferred football and his leanings were towards the Conservatives. He propelled himself to Peterhouse College, Cambridge, and was part of the Cambridge mafia that included Kenneth Clarke, Leon Brittan, Norman Lamont and Norman Fowler. But while his contemporaries all entered parliament within a few years of graduating, Michael Howard's journey to Westminster took considerably longer. He first stood as a Conservative candidate in 1966 when he was just 24 years old. He tried again, unsuccessfully, in 1970, but it was not until 1983 - after putting his name forward for dozens of safe seats - that he was chosen as the party's candidate for Folkestone and Hythe and secured a seat in the House of Commons. He says that by the time he was successful, he wondered whether he was too old to make his mark there. But he rose quickly through the ministerial ranks and had secured a place in cabinet before he was 50. He was John Major's Home Secretary for four years - a controversial period that culminated in his former deputy, Ann Widdecombe, saying there was 'something of the night' in his personality.
When he stood to be leader of the party in 1997 he came fifth out of five candidates. But eight months ago he was elected, unopposed, the new leader of the party. He told Sue Lawley: 'I was astonished. It was not something I ever thought would happen and if we'd been sitting here a year ago and you'd told me that I'd be sitting here today as leader of the Conservative Party, I have said that you were prone to fantasies'.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: (Everything I Do) I Do It For You by Bryan Adams Book: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro Luxury: A hot shower and some soap
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. |
| 0:05.0 | For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. |
| 0:08.0 | The program was originally broadcast in 2004, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. Mike Kostaway this week is a politician. He's very clever. He plays the guitar, likes cats, football and the Beatles and has been married |
| 0:35.5 | for 30 years to a beautiful ex-model, all of which you might think would make him a popular figure |
| 0:41.3 | on the political scene. The truth is rather different. |
| 0:44.8 | Born and brought up in Wales, the son of a Jewish Romanian immigrant, he went up to Cambridge |
| 0:49.2 | and became President of the Union. But while his contemporaries sauntered into Parliament and then into |
| 0:54.4 | office, his climb to the top took much longer. And even then, despite holding |
| 0:59.2 | senior posts in government, his party seemed reluctant to accept him as its leader. |
| 1:05.0 | Eight months ago, everything changed. |
| 1:07.5 | Demoralised, the party finally turned to the man who, despite his adversities, had stayed loyal and whose experience and stature they |
| 1:15.5 | recognize they needed. |
| 1:17.3 | I've always taken the view, he says, that other people can decide what you can do and what you can't do. He is Michael Howard. That must be a |
| 1:26.8 | judgment, Michael, forged by experience rather than something that you've always worked on? |
| 1:33.0 | No, I think it is one of the crucial things about political life. |
| 1:39.0 | It's actually true that other people decide what you can do and what you can't do. |
| 1:43.7 | It's true. |
| 1:44.7 | But it almost makes you sound sort of passive, you know, |
| 1:47.7 | less than ambitious. |
| 1:49.5 | Well, I'm not passive because I think what you've got to do is to do whatever job you're given |
| 1:55.5 | as well as you can and if you do that job to the best of your ability others will then decide |
| 2:01.0 | what should happen to you next. I mean I wasn't one of those people who when I was |
... |
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