Last week you asked William Hague a number of questions. ConservativeHome selected ten of those questions and asked the Shadow Foreign Secretary for his answers.
Voice from the South West: What made you decide after four years away from frontline politics to join the front bench again? Do you still harbour Prime Ministerial ambitions?
In many ways I was reluctant to come back into frontline politics, but I decided that this next few years is the time when we can really get things together in the Conservative Party and win again. That being so, everyone who can help has something of a duty to do so, in whatever way or whatever position. I thought it would be exciting and productive to work with David Cameron, and that has indeed turned out to be the case.
I have absolutely no ambition ever to be the leader again myself!
Jon-Paul McEwan - Mr Hague I would like to know why the Conservative MEPs are being made to work with the European Peoples Party - European Democrats until the 2009 euro elections. Why don't you just leave the EPP-ED now? Do you think that Mr Cameron has broken his leadership election pledge to leave the EPP-ED asap, because I think that he has!
David Cameron’s pledge was to leave the EPP-ED group and we will certainly be doing that, so have no doubt at all that his word will be kept.
The main reason we did not leave this year was that our closest allies in the European Parliament, the Czech ODS, asked us to wait for them and create a new group at the time of the next elections. We think a group founded with them has the greatest chance of future success.
It is also clear that the idea of creating the group in 2009 has won the vast majority support of MPs and MEPs, who saw it as the right way to proceed.
RobC: Could the Conservatives ever have had a chance of winning the 2001 General Election, or significantly reducing Labour's majority? Was it the case that unless Labour had really messed up, the UK electorate were always going to give them two terms? Were you the right chap but at the wrong time? Is David Cameron the right chap at the right time?
It is true, I think, that unless Labour created a national crisis they were going to be given two terms. I have no regrets about taking on the leadership then – somebody had to do the night shift, as I often say! The right chap at the wrong time is a nice way of putting it, so thanks for that, but I am sure that David is indeed the right chap at the right time, and I am going to do everything I can to help him be exactly that.
John Coles: Why is it that you and the likes of Liam Fox, David Davis and other Shadow Cabinet members, never speak a word on policies? The silence is eery and, seemingly, unhealthy.
I think the truth here is that when we speak about policy we do not always get a lot of attention unless the leader of the party is articulating it – this is a general feature of modern politics, particularly in opposition. But take a look at the speeches Liam Fox has made on energy security, or my speech in July on nuclear proliferation and you will see what we are actually doing – journalists are not normally interested in these speeches but perhaps one of the benefits of websites like this one is that they can be given much wider circulation.
Andrew Woodman: What do you wish you had done differently during your time as leader?
My usual answer to this question is that I wished I had blocked Jeffrey Archer’s London Mayor bid while I could, which is true, but I think there is a broader point. What we really should have paid more attention to was consistency of message – the longer I have been in politics the more I realise that you really have to say the same thing a hundred times over before you can expect any significant number of people to have heard it. In the last two parliaments we switched tack a couple of times in the hope of breaking through, but I think we are showing in this one that we realise you have to just plug away for a long time with a few key messages before you really get a hearing.
Michael McGough: Can you tell us more about your Movement for European Reform and how you plan to achieve reform.What sort of establishment and budget do you have for this enormous task?
The website of the Movement for European Reform will be launched this week at the conference, and we are currently recruiting the people and funds to take it forward. There is great enthusiasm among our Czech friends, and I think we have an exciting chance here to set the debate going in the rest of Europe, arguing for a more flexible EU from a centre-right perspective. My intention is that young politicians from all over Europe will find the Movement attracts their interest and challenges the failed orthodoxies of recent decades.
Alex Swanson: What would you say to members or disillusioned former members unhappy with the way they've been treated by the leadership since the last election? In particular, how can you defend the removal of the right to choose candidates, with the clear implication of distrust that this carries?
Of course there will be people who are unhappy with any chosen course of the leadership, but the alternative in my view, to David Cameron’s approach, is to sit in opposition for the rest of our lives. Remember we got 31%, 32% and 33% at the last three elections. So we just have to change and update certain things: one of those is the mix of candidates. If we are not prepared to do that we do not have the will to win.
James - Dear William, do you agree with me that the current Labour government has not afforded sufficient priority in its foreign policy agenda to strengthening its diplomatic relations with key Asian partners (China, India, South Korea, Japan) over the past 10 years, to advance Britain's international priorities thorugh building strategic alliances to secure Britain's future economic and political interests? If appointed as Foreign Secretary in the next Conservative government, how important would Britain's relationships with Asian nations be?
Yes, very much. This is one reason we have just made major visits to the East: David Cameron to India, George Osborne to Japan, Liam Fox and me to China, and I also went to Kazakhstan. Many more such visits will follow before the next election, so that we come into office with the understanding and relationships necessary to expand our influence and economic opportunities in Asia. Our view of the world has been too Eurocentric for a long time.
Dominic: You and Andrew Mitchell have rightly called on Tony Blair and other world leaders to take action on the appalling deterioration of security and law and order in Darfur. If the present international impasse continues with there being no deployment of an UN peacekeeping force in the region, can and should Britain be prepared to send its own troops to Darfur?
British troops are so overstretched there is no prospect of sending them to Darfur. The Sudanese Government should admit UN troops, as I told them when I visited Darfur in April, but if this never happens then there should be at the very least a strengthening of the African Union force with logistical and air assistance from NATO. I do not believe we can just stand by and see a new slaughter commence.
Becky Stevens: Hi William, as a young conservative I am very passionate about our world and making it better through helping others and caring about the environment. Can you tell me more about the Conservative Human Rights group and what it is trying to achieve? Is this a group more people can get involved in?
The Conservative Human Rights Group is doing good work, led by Gary Streeter MP, and has done a great deal this year to highlight the desperate situation in Burma, which we will discuss further in Bournemouth. It holds hearings on countries with poor human rights records and makes recommendations about government policy. You can certainly get involved in some way so do contact Gary.
