Sir Bernard Ingham
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.3 • 14.3K Ratings
🗓️ 21 May 1995
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sue Lawley's castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is Sir Bernard Ingham. For 11 years, one month and five days, almost from when she came to power to the day she left office, he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Mrs Thatcher. A former card-carrying member of the Labour Party, he became her Chief Press Secretary, adviser and supporter.
He was accused by the media of crossing the line between civil service impartiality and political support on that fateful day in Paris in November 1990, just 36 hours before she lost the leadership election. He'll be telling Sue Lawley about his childhood in Yorkshire, his training as a journalist on the Hebden Bridge Times, his transition to Press Secretary for Tony Benn, Maurice MacMillan and Barbara Castle. In 1979, no-one was more astonished than he when he was headhunted to become one of Mrs Thatcher's closest advisers, and finally one of the most influential members of her team.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Violin Concerto in B Minor - Andante by Edward Elgar Book: Times Atlas of the World Luxury: Colin Cowdrey's bowling machine
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello I'm Krestey 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 1995 and the presenter was Sue Lawley. My castaway this week is a civil servant. It's a description which implies anonymity, but he's held the public gaze more than most. |
| 0:40.0 | For 11 years, almost from when she came to power to the day she left office, he stood shoulder to shoulder with Mrs Thatcher, her advisor, supporter and chief press secretary. |
| 0:50.0 | Many accused him of crossing the line between civil service impartiality and political support, |
| 0:55.8 | but few doubted he served his mistress astoundingly well. |
| 0:59.6 | Since leaving number 10, he's returned to a career in journalism, transferring his tough, |
| 1:05.2 | gruff and indelibly Yorkshire qualities from politics to newspapers and television. |
| 1:10.8 | He is Sir Bernard Ingham. Bernard, it's surely an impossibility not to cross that |
| 1:16.2 | impartiality line, isn't it? If you're going to be loyal and supportive and present |
| 1:20.5 | your boss in her best light, Surely you've got to become partisan. |
| 1:24.0 | Well, I work for both political parties and I don't believe that I work for Mrs. |
| 1:29.2 | Thatcher any different than I work for, say, Barbara Castle, Robert Carr, Morris, Macmillan or Tony Ben. |
| 1:37.0 | I think that what you do is you work extremely hard for the government of the day that which the voters have landed you with you do |
| 1:45.4 | your best for them you'll try to get under the skin and into the mind of the minister that |
| 1:50.4 | you work for and you represent it and there are some things that the party has to do and |
| 1:55.3 | there are things that the civil servant can do. |
| 1:57.6 | There was one moment though when you visibly cross that line wasn't there and that was in November |
| 2:02.0 | 1990 at the British Embassy in Paris |
| 2:04.6 | when the result of that first leadership ballot came through. |
| 2:07.6 | Mrs Thatcher rushed downstairs to speak to the press, you rushed with her. |
| 2:11.1 | Now that was a party political platform. No I didn't rush with her. Now that was a party political platform. |
... |
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